A Wittgenstein Commentary
I'm glad I made a copy of the thread I wrote from the other forum. I'm not sure if there is enough interest to post some of that here. Maybe I could post it for people to read and comment on. What do you people think?
Comments (1242)
I remember that there was a very good thread on the older forum about Wittgenstein's Tractatus. Was that your thread? In any case, if you can repost the original post, and the date, it ought to be possible to find the old thread on the Wayback Machine.
Yeah I actually remember that, and it got somewhat controversial because of a poster who appeared to be taking your ideas. X-) But aside from that, it was actually a great post.
No matter how many times I edit these posts, I always find more mistakes.
Sam
Thanks for the recommendation. I noticed that Google Books makes the whole book available for online reading. (I grabbed it and OCRed it so that I could annotate it). This is strange since Google *also* makes available a free sample, and sell the whole book in the Books section of the Google Play Store.
I'm interested to know what OCRing is...
Optical Character Recognition... to convert the raw images in the pdf files that I had generated into searchable text (that can also be underlined, highlighted, copied, etc.) I couldn't find a good freeware to do that, so I downloaded a 7-day trial version of Adobe Acrobat DC. Thus converted, the pdf book looks just the same but it now has a hidden text layer added to it.
OK thanks. Is it easy to convert the online book to PDF?
I found an online tool for that. Just PM me.
Please could you update me, what is the current thinking on Austin's idea of performative utterances, and Ryle's idea of categorical mistakes?
It is important to understand the background of Wittgenstein's works in order to better understand his thinking. I am not going to be able to give those of you who are interested a complete background of what was going on in philosophy at the time, vis-a-vis Bertrand Russell, A. N. Whitehead, and Gottlob Frege. I will only give you bits and pieces, and hopefully this will inspire you to do your own thinking, and come to your own conclusions about the nature of Wittgenstein's work; and not only the nature of his work, but to come to understand how his thinking should influence the way we think about language, and in particular - propositions.
As much as I enjoy Wittgenstein's philosophy, and thinking about what he said concerning the nature of a proposition, it is important to understand that no philosopher no matter how brilliant - is without flaws. Hence, we have to be careful about getting tunnel vision, and we have to be careful about being to dogmatic about a certain philosopher, philosophy, or theory. That said, we can learn much about some of the problems of philosophy by spending some time trying to understand Wittgenstein's methods, and how these methods apply to philosophical thinking concerning the proposition. After all, propositions to philosophers, are like the hammer, saw, and nails to a carpenter.
I have come to the conclusion after reading several biographies and studying Wittgenstein on my own, that in the 20th century Wittgenstein is to philosophy, what Einstein is to physics; and just as a physicist would not neglect Einstein's theories, I think philosophers should also not neglect the study of Wittgenstein's methods. His writings are some of the most original in all of philosophy, and the power of his intellect is demonstrated not only in his philosophy, but in other areas of his life.
Wittgenstein was born in Vienna, and he was the youngest of eight children. He came from a very cultured and rich industrialist family. In fact Johannes Brahms would come to the Wittgenstein home and play his music. Ludwig was educated at home until the age of 14, when his parents decided to send the young Wittgenstein to Linz to prepare him in mathematics and the physical sciences. It seems that the young Wittgenstein wanted to study with the physicist Boltzmann, however Boltzmann died in 1906. After being educated in Linz for three years, he then went to Berlin to study mechanical engineering at the Technische Hochscule at Charlottenburg. After two years in Berlin he went to England where he became a research student of engineering at the University of Manchester. During this time he engaged in aeronautical research, and went from experimenting with kites, to the construction of a jet reaction propeller for aircraft. The design of the propeller was a mathematical endeavor, which eventually led the young Wittgenstein into pure mathematics, and then, to the foundation of mathematics. Apparently his interest in the foundation of mathematics led him to Russell and Whitehead's work, called the Principles of Mathematics. The Principles of Mathematics greatly affected the young Wittgenstein, and this interest led him to the works of Frege who was the founder of modern mathematical logic; so it was through Russell, Whitehead, and Frege's works that Wittgenstein entered into the study of philosophy.
According to G. H. Von Wright, Wittgenstein read Schopenhauer's Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, and this brought him face-to-face with Schopenhauer's idealism. Later Wittgenstein apparently abandoned his Schopenharuerian idealistic views in favor of Frege's conceptual realism; and it seems that after a talk with Frege, Wittgenstein decided to go to Cambridge and study philosophy with Russell (G. H. Von Wright, A Biographical Sketch, p. 6).
What follows is my own analysis of On Certainty, and this analysis is done with very little input from other philosophers. Hence, some of my thoughts may diverge or converge with others, but they are mine and I take responsibility for them. Hopefully, I will hit the mark from time-to-time, at least that is my goal. Maybe some of you will get something out of this, but I can tell you it takes a lot of work, and even then, it is easy to miss the point of Wittgenstein's thinking. I have read and re-read On Certainty many times, and each time I do, I learn something new.
Wittgenstein wrote On Certainty in response to Moore's papers, Proof of an External World and A Defense of Common Sense in which Moore lists a number of propositions that he claims to know with certainty. Propositions such as the following: "Here is one hand" and "There exists at present a living human body, which is my body (G.E. Moore, Philosophical Papers (1959), p. 1)." Moore continues to enumerate other propositions that he claims to know, with certainty, to be true. These propositions provide for Moore a proof of the external world, and as such, they supposedly form a buttress against the skeptic.
As we read On Certainty we note that it is not only Moore's claim to knowledge that Wittgenstein criticizes, specifically Moore's use of the word know, but he also critiques the skeptic, and their use of the word doubt. Wittgenstein's response to Moore's propositions is not entirely unsympathetic, although he argues that Moore's propositions do not accomplish what Moore thinks they do, viz., to provide a proof of the external world; which in turn is supposed to undermine the doubts of the skeptic. Moore's proof is supposed to show that the conclusion follows necessarily, and if it does, then the skeptic's doubts are supposed to vanish - at least in theory. The proof would look something like the following:
1) Moore has knowledge that he has two hands.
2) Moore makes the inference from the fact that he has two hands, to the conclusion that there exists an external world.
3) Hence, Moore knows that an external world exists.
Wittgenstein is challenging the first premise in the above argument; more specifically, he is challenging Moore's claim that he knows that he has hands. Moore demonstrated this by holding up one hand, and then the other.
Having knowledge of something presupposes that there are good reasons (at least in many cases), or at least some justification to believe it, but exactly what is it that Moore has knowledge of? He claims to have knowledge of the existence of his hands, but what would count as evidence for such a claim? Do I know that I have hands because I check to see if they are there every morning? Do I make a study of my hands, and thereby conclude that I do indeed have hands? I have knowledge of chemistry, physics, history, epistemology, and other subjects, and there are ways to confirm my knowledge. However, in our everyday lives do we need to confirm that we have hands? And, do we normally doubt such things?
From here I will examine On Certainty, sometimes line-by-line, other times a section at a time.
"If you do know that here is one hand [G.E. Moore, Proof of an External World], we'll grant you all the rest. When one says that such and such a proposition can't be proved, of course that does not mean that it can't be derived from other propositions; any proposition can be derived from other ones. But they may be no more certain than it is itself (OC, 1)."
So, Wittgenstein grants that if Moore does indeed know that he has a hand, then Moore's conclusion follows. The skeptic says that such a proposition can't be proved. This doesn't mean, though, that we can't derive them based on other propositions. However, the derivation may not be any stronger than the proposition we started with. There seems to be something foundational here, viz., that some propositions are foundational to our claims of knowledge or our claims of doubt. When you reach bedrock no part of the foundational structure is stronger.
"From it seeming to me--or to everyone--to be so, it doesn't follow that it is so. What we can ask is whether it can make sense to doubt it (OC, 2)."
The skeptic may have a point (although it may not be the point he/she is trying to make), that just because people (or Moore) say something is so, it doesn't follow that it is. However, Wittgenstein points out that what we need to ask, is whether the doubt makes sense. Doubting occurs in a language-game, and language-games have rules - later Wittgenstein will point out that a doubt that doubts everything is not a doubt.
Knowledge has to be demonstrated - whereas Moore seems to just state his propositions as facts, and this need to be shown or demonstrated in some way.
Sam, I am glad to see you here. Your notes on Wittgenstein are very valuable, as is your quiet, deliberate voice.
There is a copy of the 1929 Lecture on Ethics online, here, in an unformatted version. It ends:
There is a metaphysical assumption lumped into that paragraph that plagues the Tractatus and for the matter the correspondence theory of truth. Namely, that to know if a picture is accurate in depicting reality, we already have to know what reality looks like. In other words, there is a certain unspecified set of criteria that has to be met for a picture to be in accordance with reality, which exhaustively can never be achieved (A central reason why Popper's Fallibilism will always be superior to Verificationism). Wittgenstein does not go into detail about this set of criteria, which is unfortunate. Perhaps, this is just a game of semantics over "correctly" or "accurately"; but, this is where I think Wittgenstein is lacking in his appeal to the scientific process or logical positivism, which would have made his Tractatus a lasting work of philosophy if it already is not one.
Wittgenstein thinks there is a one-to-one correspondence between the smallest constituent parts of a propositions (names), and the smallest constituent parts of the world (viz., obects). This idea is repudiated in the PI; and you're right he does make metaphysical assumptions that aren't substantiated. He didn't think it was his job to provide examples of names or objects, but he wasn't unaware of the problem.
I do think there is something to the idea that propositions picture reality, or mirror reality. The problem is that philosophers are always trying to find a precise definition that explains what correspondence means, and precision is not always possible or needed. I think we generally understand what it means for a painting to picture reality, and in many of the same ways we generally understand what it means for a proposition to mirror reality. Is it a model that fits every instance of a proposition? No.
Here's the problem. Wittgenstein goes on to assert the validity of pictures depicting reality, without specifying what criteria are being met to accurately or correctly depict reality. It's not a matter of semantics as to what degree are we 'accurately' or 'correctly' depicting reality because if the assumption that either a picture is in accordance with reality (the state of affairs of being 'True') or is not in accordance with reality (the state of affairs of being 'False'), because we are already making the assumption that what we are saying is 'True' as opposed to being 'False' when talking about pictures of reality (or the representation of states of affairs in reality via the use of elementary propositions, eg. names). Otherwise, if we can't specify the meaning of "correctly" or "accurately" in this context, then sad to say the whole thing is nonsense.
My understanding is that he does specify what criteria has to be met in order for a proposition to depict reality. And you're correct it's not a matter of semantics, it's in accordance with his understanding of how a proposition matches up one-to-one via names and objects. If the proposition's names match with the objects in reality, then you have a one-to-one correspondence, if not, then you have a false proposition. Correctly and accurately, as you state, is simply determined by the relationship between the proposition (names) and the world (objects).
To add to what Sam said, I believe this is well summarised by Wikipedia's Tractatus article, particularly in its reference to a geometric projection:
So, for example, Wittgenstein's law court dolls possess the same logical structure as the facts if they stand in the same relationships to each other as the facts they represent, or if they are are projected in the same way as/from the facts.
There's several problems here. First, Wittgenstein is using a metaphor based on vision, which would be to picture or mirror reality. Metaphors are useful, but they shouldn't be taken literally. Propositions are linguistic, not visual. They can't literally "mirror" the world. The problem with metaphors in philosophy is that they can lead our intuitions astray.
Setting that a side, how do we know that a proposition matches up with things in the world? That would assume that our perception reveals things as they are, and not simply as we perceive them, which would seem to imply a direct form of realism.
What Wittgenstein needs is an account of how we justify knowing that perception and conception get a things as they are such that propositions "mirror" the world when they are true. He needs to defend a direct realist version of perception. And perhaps beyond that, a form of essentialism, because "mirroring" would presume that we carve nature at its joints when we form true propositions. A Kantian would not agree with Witty here.
Summary: an account of perception and concept formation is needed to justify propositions matching up with things in the world. You can't skip over that by simply analyzing language. Language doesn't tell you how we know about the world.
No, to "mirror" already assumes indirect realism.
Then what would be direct realism for propositions? That propositions reach out into the world and touch objects? Or that objects are in propositions?
The point which Wittgenstein makes is that there is no necessity for such 'matching up with things in the world.' That results from the error of thinking that a statement is a direct description of 'the world.' There is no such 'world' that is necessarily known. All that a statement does is postulate a possible proposition, and if another person acts on the proposition in accordance with the speaker's intent, then the communication is successful. The statement may refer to something fictional, or non-existent, or totally whimisical, or be in total contradiction to that which scientific models hold that exist materially, and it makes no difference at all, in Wittgenstein's view, because there is no necessity for a proposition to match up with things in the world. Language is only a tool for communication, and epistemologically, from Wittgenstein's perspective, there is nothing else that is fruitful to define as 'the world' besides the language itself.
With respect to discussions of science modeling some physical materiality, the same applies. All that we can actually do is discuss the model, which being defined in language, is subject to the same restrictions of accuracy as language itself, defining 'objects,' 'states,' and 'events' which need have no actual reality beyond that defined in the words used to define the model. And that is the most that can be known.
Except that he does mention "the world" sometimes in a way that suggests it's independent of a language:
[quote=Wittgenstein]It is not how things are in the world that is mystical, but that it exists.[/quote]
Quoting ernestm
This would entail an abandonment of propositions being statements that have truth values. The snow is white isn't true iff the snow is white. It's only said to be true if one is playing a particular language game.
But if I ask you whether it's raining outside, I'm not interesting in playing some linguistic game with the words "rain" and "outside". Rather, I'm wanting to know if I should take my raincoat. The language allows you to tell me what is the case. IOW, I want to know the truth of the proposition, "It is raining outside".
It does not require abandoning truth value. Propositions can still be evaluated linguistically, so it is possible to make an inference or deduction. The problem is what to do with ideas such as color, which you rightly choose as an example, because Wittgenstein himself chose the same problem to discuss. And in the very end, he concluded the same thing. The existence of color is mystical. MANY people object to that, but that was his conclusion.
Maybe when I thought it was raining, the neighborhood kids had put a sprinkler on top of the house. Realizing that there in cases when I can be wrong about what I perceive, as the ancient Greeks did, I can then pose skeptical questions and follow those up with non-skeptical replies. In fact, Witty did spend some of his time worrying about skepticism, and proposing solutions to skeptical concerns.
I don't see that as using language incorrectly. Rather, it's noticing that we sometimes are mistaken and wondering what that entails. Even ordinary folks with no philosophical reading will sometimes wonder how they know what is real or whether they're inside a dream or simulation, etc.
That's an interesting conclusion. I would say it's compatible with McGinn's cognitive closure. Funny, because Dennett really doesn't like cognitive closure, but he admires Wittgenstein.
While I actually agree with what you are saying, Wittgenstein has a problem with your idea, because the statement 'it is raining' assumes there is something called 'rain.' A lot of people have trouble understanding this, so I annoy descriptivist philosophers by talking about boundary conditions. How many drops of water need to fall from the sky to constitute 'rain'? When is it 'mizzling' or 'misty' or 'sleeting' rather than raining?
Those following descriptive theories say, well, the truth of the proposition is defined by a proper definition of 'rain,' which is more than X drops of water of size XX per cubic meter per second in the temperature range Y-Z.
But Wittgenstein's point is that is not WHY we say 'it is raining.' W. ways that the descriptivists have confused HOW with WHY. If your wife tells you to bring something in from the car, you reply 'it is raining' because you don't want to go outside. Maybe it is not really raining and just mizzling, but if your wife agrees with you, then the proposition would be considered true for the two of you, accomplishing the goal of the communication.
I certainly would like to know more about that, but I think the above example clarifies the issue of 'mystical' existence. When you tell your wife 'it is raining' because you don't want to go outside and fetch something she asked for from your car, the two of you can agree it is raining, in which case you've agreed the proposition is true. But if she doesn't agree, then the two of you can argue until you're both blue in the face about whether it is raining or not, and neither of you can prove the other wrong--which you, being the rational philosopher, might realize in advance it postpones going outside and thus also meets your own objective--but as to how to evaluate 'truth' of the idea of whether it is raining or not, scientific evaluation of the amount of water falling from the sky is not going to persuade either of you as to what is 'true.' In fact, you could both collude on agreeing it is raining, when in fact neither of you believe it true, because she never really wanted anything from your car, and she was really trying to get you to cook dinner instead, so you wouldn't have to go outside. Then in exchange she fetches the thing she wanted from the car while you are cooking.....and that is the 'mystical' nature of reality, and its vague connection with experience that Wittgenstein tries to avoid discussing!
Ah, but what if your wife agrees with you because the weather report said it would rain today, but there's no water falling from the sky at all? Would the proposition still be true?
Quoting ernestm
There is a weather condition to which the concept "rain" is about. It does have boundary conditions (so do ships I hear). And we can use "rain "in other ways (making it rain at a Gentleman's club). But that doesn't mean there isn't a weather condition to which rain usually refers. And the other uses of "rain" are borrowed from the weather condition (money raining down.
Is this just because language is flexible and somewhat arbitrary in how we use (or abuse) it's symbols? We can have a huge debate on free will, and the terms surrounding the debate can vary quite a bit, with a huge amount of semantic dispute, as they tend to do in philosophical discussions.
But that alone doesn't mean there isn't something to the free will issue that concerns people. Which is really about to what extent we are the authors of our own choices, and what responsibility do we (or others) have for those choices.
Pointing out that the terms "free" and "will" can vary depending on context does not dissolve the underlying concern people have. Here I'm mainly arguing with the point of view that Wittgenstein's approach dissolves long standing philosophical problems.
People have generally agreed Wittgenstein did lose his temper, by the other accounts, but W. to the day of his death insisted that he was simply using it politely like a lecture pointer, and did not 'storm out' as Popper claimed.
That has always seemed prima facie absurd to me. Now maybe some philosophical problems can be cured by understanding language as a game. Sorites would be a candidate. But others, like whether perception & cognition give us an accurate view of the world, or whether Sextus and the Cyrenaics (or Kant, Hume, Berkley, etc) were right is not. It's a legitimate question that arises because perception and cognition are fallible, and we sometimes notice this to be the case. Furthermore, our sciences have shown that common sense, which ordinary language makes great use of, often gets things wrong.
We can legitimately ask, without abusing language, whether the rain we see is as we perceive it, or something else, like maybe 10 dimensional strings of energy, or code in the Matrix.
However W has not generally won in persuading people to that. For example, he held that Popper's view that he was 'threatening with the poker' actually proves this point. It's transpired that's a little too obscurantist for most people.
It can be, like with the wife raining example. But if I'm asking a philosophical question, presumably I'm puzzled by some aspect of being, not trying to avoid cooking dinner, or hopefully, performing some piece of sophistry.
Take the problem of universals. One could argue that it arises from philosophers taking words out of context. But I don't think it works in this case. Because the problem arose by noticing that although the things we perceive are particular, we form generalized concepts across particulars. And this happens throughout all language games.
Why do we do this? Well, because particulars have similarities. And what makes things similar? At this point, you have the problem of universals. And it's not unique to any language game, or even language, since we perceive both similarity and particularity, and presumably our language employs universal talk because that's the way human cognition works.
And now you're back at Plato or Kant, or modern cognitive scientists and perhaps even cosmologists (symmetry breaking and initial state of the Big Bang). You may even conclude that man is the measure, and we carve up the world as it suits us. Or you may side with the essentialists.
But either way, it's a legitimate philosophical (and maybe scientific) question.
To formal logicians, W's approach could be valid, perhaps. Nonetheless it is not as fruitful as considering abstractions and representing them with symbols, which allows derivation of more complex explanations.
My own opinion, for whatever that is worth, is that there is no necessity for any one metaphysics to be that which we use in all situations. I don't regard arguments as to 'which is true' to be meaningful. I rather consider which approach is more fruitful in different situations. And I certainly would not attempt a scientific experiment to prove my wife wrong about whether it is raining or not when she wants me to go outside, so W's view does have merit in that situation!
I'd say, if she thinks it not raining, then she can fetch things from the car while I cook dinner. That's a far more likely inference to result in mutual agreement. And it doesn't actually matter whether it is true that it is raining or not, solving the problem entirely.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/1349/wittgensteins-mysticism-or-not-#Item_1
It's not quite the standard view, but as I am talking about W's mysticism I exercised a little license on it to make it more intelligible. thanks for the conversation )
Sorry to go back on old posts Sam. I think this is a very important point raised here. I like to think of this situation as akin to how a computer operates because in my opinion if Wittgenstein were more of a logician, I believe he would have been an Alan Turing of his time.
Please don't take it too literally; but, you have a set of rules by which a computer operates. These rules are all logical. Now, you have some software running that sets "objects" in certain configurations by the rules of logic of the computer (through some programming language).
Can you help me fill in the gaps in this reasoning? I find it extremely helpful to think in analogies.
It seems that no matter how hard we try, when we use language, we are making some claim about some objective state of affairs in the world. Even saying things like, "We can never know anything." is a claim of some objective state-of-affairs. Even though it contradicts itself and becomes meaningless once you parse it correctly, it is still a claim of some state-of-affairs. It is meaningless because it is a claim of knowledge while claiming at the same time that one has no knowledge.
Things like this and metaphors are only possible because we have so many different words that share the same meaning, or have some arbitrarily loaded meaning that is created via communicating something other than what is being said. When someone says, "the computer is a dinosaur." Why is it that most adults know what they mean? Would a child know what they mean? If not, then doesn't that mean that the child needs to learn how language is used, and by learning how something is used is learning about how something is. They would be learning something - language - the thing that all the scribbles in this entire thread are referring to - that and some dude with a silly name that begins with the letter W. If not, then who are we referring to, and what did he actually say about what?
Where did you get the idea that "...language doesn't refer to things that are real, or accurate..." - Wittgenstein sure isn't saying this.
"Knowledge" is simply some set of instructions for interpreting sensory information. We have all had the experience of believing that we know something and then realize that we didn't know it at all, or were mistaken. "Knowledge" can be wrong. This is because we were using the wrong set of instructions for interpreting some sensory experience. Any explanation of knowledge needs to include how it can be wrong, or inaccurate. It needs to explain how it is that we think we possess knowledge, but sometimes don't. It also needs to explain how every use of our knowledge is what determines whether or not our knowledge is sufficient, and how subsequent uses of our knowledge that allow us to make accurate predictions lends more weight to the accuracy of our knowledge.
When we acquire knowledge, we are learning. Learning is simply acquiring some set of instructions for interpreting sensory information. When I say that I know how to speak English, I am saying that I have learned the set of instructions for interpreting the visual and audio impressions in a particular way. I don't know how to speak Chinese because I don't have the instructions for interpreting the visual and audio impressions when I see or hear Chinese written or spoken.
Would W. say that I'm misusing the term, "know"? Why, or why not?
Is it me or does this paragraph of the Investigations sound very Buddhist or Eastern?
I put the italicized portion of emphasis.
There are rules for saying that one "knows," and Wittgenstein shows us in On Certainty how we can unlock the rules by examining the many uses of the word know. Knowing though goes beyond simply sensory information, however, it also includes sensory information. For example, I can know the orange juice is sweet by tasting it, but knowing that triangles have three sides, is something that can be known apart from sensory experience. By definition triangles have three sides. This is not to say that I can't have a sensory experience of a triangle, but that my knowledge of what a triangle is not limited to sensory experience.
What you seem to be saying is that we never possess knowledge. We only possess claims of knowledge. Does that make any sense? If we don't possess knowledge, then how is it that we are claiming it? If we don't possess knowledge, and never can, then we are misusing the word knowledge when we claim we have it, as knowledge is something unattainable, or imaginary. So, if we don't have knowledge, then what do we have? What is it that makes us claim that we have "knowledge"?
This is the problem that philosophers have created in defining "knowledge" in such a way that creates these paradoxes. Using your definition, one eventually arrives at the claim, "We can never know anything." As I already stated, this is a contradiction. If we can never know anything, how is it that we know that we can never know anything? and doesn't that contradict the phrase itself?
I surely know some things. I know that something exists, rather than nothing. I also know that I know this. I also have the experience of knowing something and then realizing that my knowledge was inaccurate. This is easier and less contradictory than defining knowledge as something unattainable or imaginary. It's not that we think we possess knowledge and then find out we don't which ends up relegating "knowledge" into meaninglessness, or nothingness. It is that knowledge is an interpretation, which means that it can be accurate, or inaccurate depending on the relationship between some state-of-affairs and your interpretation of your sensory model of that state-of-affairs.
Quoting Sam26
But I can know the orange juice is sweet by looking at the sugar content on the label of the orange juice carton, or know that orange juice is sweet simply by referring to my memory of tasting it, not by experiencing the sweetness by tasting it now.
As for triangles, are you saying that you know what a triangle is simply by reading a definition of a triangle and not having ever looked at one? When reading the definition, what are "sides", and what is "three"? You can keep using words to define things, but eventually you have to get at the root sensory experience of seeing a triangle. Words themselves have shape and an audio quality and you must be able to see and hear in order to learn and use language. You must have had some prior experience with words, or triangles, in order to know what they are, and how to use them.
Sam is seguing from a reading of 'On Certainty' to his own understanding. 'On Certainty' is not a long book, it helps to read the source material to follow the drift.
If we raise a poker for instance, in a way that another might interpret as threatening. :)
-W.
There is no "my" world. There is the world and the limits of my language mean the limits of me being able to communicate my knowledge and understanding of the world. I can still experience the world without language. The world is still there even if I never learned a language.
What about older insights, scientific or philosophical, that have *not* been rendered obsolete by modern knowledge? Do ideas all come labeled with a expiration date? I would be hard pressed, myself, to think of a single Wittgensteinian insight that has been rendered obsolete by a recent scientific discovery. On the other hand, reading some philosophical musings produced by philosophically illiterate modern scientists, it often seems to me that what they are saying had already been rendered obsolete by Aristotle more than twenty-three centuries ago!
Yeah, so that's the tinge of solipsism in the Tractatus. It's no big deal if one acknowledges that the world represents logical space, with every person being some point on the origin, perceiving reality relativistically. Wittgenstein doesn't go into detail; but, I assume he would say that some external world exists apart from the one perceived by an observer.
(Y)
There is no mathematical substitute for philosophy.
Kripke, 1976, Logic
No, I'm not saying that we never possess knowledge. I'm simply pointing out that there is a difference between the definition of knowledge (justified true belief), and one's claim to knowledge. Just because one claims to have knowledge it doesn't follow that they do. By definition knowledge is a true belief, but knowledge claims are not by definition true. You seem to be conflating the two.
I never said ideas come with an expiration date. That would be committing a genetic fallacy. My point was that old ideas without the new is only telling half the story. We can find what Steven Pinker thinks about W., but we will never know what W. thinks about Pinker. Studying W. without studying Pinker is limiting yourself and prevents you from seeing the bigger picture.
Since philosophy and science are the same - they are both methods of seeking knowledge AND the conclusions in domain of investigation cannot contradict those found in another - so by sticking to just one means you aren't really seeking truth, you're simply cherry-picking.
I'd be interested in your examples of "philosophically illiterate modern scientists" whose ideas have been rendered obsolete by Aristotle.
It would be no big deal if he didn't use the qualifier, "my". By using this term he seems to imply that there are other worlds. If there are other worlds, then I would apply the same argument I have made before in regards to there being "other" minds, and that is that there must be some medium that separates these other things, and that medium must be the objective world.
If solipsism is the case then there is no "my" world. There is simply a world, or the world, that, if there was an external world to this one, then it would be called a "mind". But if there is nothing external to the mind, then there is no mind, only a world.
Sure, one can claim that they have a set of instructions for interpreting some sensory impression, and then there is the true interpretation of that sensory impression. But how do you, or anyone else, know when your claim represents true knowledge, or the accurate interpretation?
Pinker makes two great points in this video:
1) the fact that there can be two ideas underlying one word like "stud", or "tires", shows that words and thoughts (what the words refer to) can't be the same thing.
2) the fact that you can translate at all shows that there has to be something other that words because what would it mean for two sentences in different languages to be translations of each other if not for the fact that both of them have the same meaning?
You aren't taking the time to read my posts. I already explained in my first post what a "set of instructions for interpreting sensory impressions" is.
You answered your own question yourself. "Learning algebra" is learning a set of instructions for interpreting sensory impressions. How did you learn algebra without seeing the formulas - without seeing the numbers and symbols? You learned rules for interpreting what you see.
This doubt is not outside the language-game. The skeptic is asking what does the word "existence" mean here, what does it mean to exist. When we try to say what it means to exist, all sorts of logical problems arise. How can one say without doubt, "my hands exist", when one cannot say without doubt what it means to "exist"? So it becomes evident that we use words within language-games without actually knowing what the words mean. This casts doubt on language-games in general, because we can be fully engaged in a language-game, saying things without knowing what we are saying.
I'm not sure if you're saying that my interpretation is incorrect, or if Wittgenstein is incorrect, or both. It seems you're saying that both are incorrect.
I think this is near the heart of lots of philosophical issues. We know how to use words without being able to conclusively describe how or what that know-how is. I think it's non-controversial that this slippery entity 'meaning' is largely a function of context. It's not clear that some ideal meaning of exist would convenient snap together with some ideal meaning of 'hands' and 'my.' We would also need an ideal way of snapping our ideal meanings together for more complex but still ideal meanings.
When you say we don't know what words mean, that seems true in one sense (we can ramble on forever about 'exist') and false in another (knowing what they mean is just knowing how to use them).
If we criticize the use of language in the absence of an ideal justification (a definition of exist, for instance), then we are using that same unjustified language to do so, implying that we expect to be understood --implying that we trust the language in practice as we question it in theory.
This is not to deny the strangeness of our situation. A person could say that we don't really know anything. But as soon as words move toward such absolutes they lose their power to distinguish situations in practical life. If I'm not even certain that I have hands, then of what use is 'certainty' except to mark the impossible hope of infinitely itchy philosophers?
It doesn't seem possible to get 'behind' this know-how or form of life. I have to use it if I want to try to do so. My objections to the inexplicitness of my knowhow are also thereby made possible. If I demand a definition of 'exist,' why not demand a definition of 'definition' and 'demand'? Why not of 'hand'? Surely we can problematize the use of 'hand' with a little imagination.
When we criticise the use of a certain word or phrase, we are not criticising the language as a whole, just that particular use of it. There's no inconsistency in regarding language use in general as a useful, meaningful activity while criticising the use of certain word or phrases as having no use or meaning. David Borland's advocacy of the language E-Prime exemplifies that attitude and I find it refreshing and helpful.
You asked whether 'hand', 'demand' or 'definition' are as problematic as 'exist'. Empirically they are not, as people tend not to disagree over what they mean, whereas they constantly disagree over what 'exist' means - including non-philosophers. I like to use ostension as the root of meaning - that if we can trace the meaning of a word through a tree whose nodes are various other words until we reach terminal leaves, each of which is given meaning by ostension, then we know what the word means. Otherwise not.
A simpler approach though would be that if everybody agrees on what a word means, and that agreement is borne out by experiment (e.g. Simon says 'raise your hand' and everybody raises their hand), then we can consider that we know the meaning.
I agree, except with the that last part. If we are criticizing the use of a word, then it has a use, namely the one we are criticizing. Then, if we look to use for meaning, it must also have a meaning, since it has a use. Perhaps you meant an inferior use as opposed to a proposed new use or a cessation of use altogether, and a vague meaning as opposed to no meaning?
Of course I've been criticizing certain uses and certain meanings myself, suggesting that words like 'certainty' and 'objectivity' are often used in a kind of absolute, impossible sense, at least on philosophy forums. For me this is a waste of good words and less than ideal in terms of style. Of course I realize that I am just sharing and explaining my own preferences against others' in this case.
Quoting andrewk
True, 'exist' is more problematic than 'hand.' I imagine it becoming problematic in religion and physics. Is it more problematic than 'definition'? Being able to point at things helps, of course.
Quoting andrewk
I understand the appeal of that view, but what exactly happens away from the terminal nodes? How do you decide how to split a nonterminal node into other nonterminal modes? How does 'justice' split? How does 'rationality' split? 'God'?
Quoting andrewk
I like the idea that meaning is continuous with practice. There's no sharp line between the subjective experience of meaning and action in the world. What does it mean to be 'in love'? Of course certain feelings come to mind. But telling people that one is 'in love' with them is also like pushing a button. No one has to know exactly what is meant. Instead it's a typical objective occurrence (the 'materiality' of the words) that they have observed throughout their life in the context of the consequences of those words. 'If phrase X is uttered earnestly in situation Y, then A,B, or C has tended to happen, depending on E, F, and G.' From this perspective, knowing the meaning of the word would be getting these calculations more right than wrong, or rather applying these calculations successfully. Or perhaps it's best to view this calculation as continuous with 'meaning classic' and action in the world.
Presumably Wittgenstein would not want to imply that [I]every[/I] or even [I]any[/I] skeptic's epistemological malady is curable by merely insisting to them that their use of the word "hands" should conform to ordinary usage - especially considering, as you have mentioned, that Wittgenstein was against the reduction of word usage to precise definitions, whether they be formally stated rules or socially demonstrated rules of conformity.
The Skeptic who doubts the existence of his own hands is generally the Humean skeptic who doubts the predictability of his hand's future behaviour. These doubts further bring into question the predictability of language games, the reliability of the linguistic definitions they serve to ground and the conceptual networks we derive from them.
Like in your pornography example, I cannot give to myself a precise, explicit and all-encompassing definition of what I mean by "my hands". And it is imaginable that my hands will pass through this solid wall in front of me, and that in this event we might - or even might not - collectively abstain from referring to them as "my hands" .
Of course a non-skeptic might remark that this event is in-ordinary and unlikely in the eyes of the community. But their remark which a skeptic will likely consciously accept, cannot be made into an argument of refutation against the skeptic's position, for the skeptic is consciously insisting on what is in-ordinary.
The philosopher can only empathise with the skeptic who asserts the in-ordinary and try to publicly unravel the mystery that is the skeptic's private-language game of in-ordinary doubt. In other words the philosopher must try to understand the skeptic's doubting-behaviour as behavioural expression of a different sort.
Yes this is what Socrates is famous for demonstrating, many people know how to do things without really knowing exactly what they are doing. This might be applicable to someone's use of "hand". We know how to use "hand", but how many people know exactly what a hand is? If someone gave you a complete list of anatomical parts in your wrist area, would you be able to say which of them belong to your arm, and which belong to your hand. Would you even be able to accurately point to the division between your hand and your arm? Is your wrist part of your hand, part of your arm, both, or something completely distinct?
Quoting mrcoffee
The thing is, that knowing how to use language is not an "all or nothing" type of knowledge, it increases by degree. So it is this very act of questioning the usage of others, which is itself an act of usage, that increases one's knowledge of language use.
Quoting mrcoffee
I would not claim that we "don't really know anything", unless you define "know" as requiring absolute certainty. But I don't think that knowing requires absolute certainty, and this is evident from the fact that I proceed with my endeavours, knowing how to proceed, despite the fact that I know that I may not be successful with any particular attempt. And, I never know at what time something may interfere and prevent me from being successful. This fact, that I am not completely sure of my success, inspires me to seek possible avenues of failure, to eliminate them.
So the question, concerning "certainty", is what is meant by "certainty", and this has far reaching epistemological ramifications. Suppose we exclude the possibility of absolute certainty, and we still insist that when something is certain (in a less than absolute sense), its is beyond doubt. Now we have to be able to decide how to determine whether things are certain or not, in order to determine whether they ought be doubted. Once something is deemed as certain, it is called upon, and used in our actions, without question, just like a habit. Suppose we have a failure, we need to determine the cause of the failure. If "x" has already been determined as certain, then "x" will not be considered as the cause of the failure. But we've already excluded the possibility that "x" is absolutely certain, so ought we not consider the possibility that "x" is the cause of the failure, despite the fact that "x" has been determined as certain?
In reality, it is the term "certain", or "certainty", which is a useless word. To say "I am certain that I have hands" really adds nothing to "I have hands", except to emphasize one's conviction. So the issue here is really the nature of conviction. To add "I am certain" to your statement, because you believe that this conviction which possesses you, will deter another's doubt, is not a logical thing to do. It will probably just induce the other to argument.
Quoting mrcoffee
Yes, that's exactly the point, we ought to demand such definitions, this is how we prevent misunderstanding and mistake. In daily usage, if we don't adequately understand, we simply ask the speaker to clarify what was meant. But in specialized fields of education, like medicine, and biology which deals with parts of animals, you cannot just point to your hand, and say this is a hand, because the extent of the object pointed to is vague. So we need to refer to things like fingers and the wrist, to create boundaries for that specific object, "the hand", and we do this with definitions.
I don't believe Wittgenstein would have supported this, as that appears to imply that skeptical doubts are largely symptomatic of bad English. I believe that Wittgenstein took the skeptic's malady much more seriously as a deeper psychological and epistemological problem, and disagreed with Moore precisely for this reason.
In fact, I believe Wittgenstein would have taken more issue against the non-skeptic for misinterpreting what the skeptic is attempting to express, especially if the non-skeptic insisted that individual expression should be understood relative to, or worse, subordinate to essentialist ideas concerning language use in the form implicit community conventions. For this is platonism about rules in another disguise.
Going back to your pornography example, not only doesn't the individual have a clear concept of what pornography is or is not, but neither is there any implicit essential idea of the concept in the general community. Every individual who joins a community proactively contributes via his actions and verbal behaviour to the community's ever-evolving meaning of its language. Like Humpty Dumpty in Through the Looking Glass, individuals are the evolutionary engines of community conventions, and shouldn't held to it for sake of philosophy. Why wouldn't Wittgenstein have held this more common-sensical view?
Recall Wittgenstein's sympathy with what Heidegger was attempting to express in Being and Time. Rather than chastise Heidegger for failing to conform to our ordinary usage of the word "being", Wittgenstein said he understood what Heidegger was attempting to say even as Heidegger bumped his head against the limits of language.
I believe that Wittgenstein strongly rejected logical-positivism on the basis that a community shouldn't get to decide the value of individual expression on the basis of linguistic conformity . For that leads to scientism, authoritarianism and the suppression of aesthetic expression.
Right. But what comes to my mind is this use of 'really.' If a poet or an engineer is functioning at the highest level and then a bum like Socrates comes along with questions that he himself can't answer and decides that the 'really' don't know anything, then this 'really' takes on an unworldliness. (I call Socrates a 'bum' as a joke, but there is something perverse about this hero.) We don't really know what it is to really know something, one might retort.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Well this is basically my view. That's why Socrates is a bum when he suggests or implies that successful practice isn't enough. Did Coltrane really know what a saxophone was? Not for a certain kind of philosopher, even if this philosopher can't clearly imagine what 'really knowing' would look like.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Or we could say that we are implicitly certain about things that are called upon like habits. These implicit certainties can be made explicit by phenomenology or just ordinary conversation.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
I generally agree. But thinking takes time and energy. We might say practice indicates the certainty of beliefs through the things we check first when something breaks down. I am 'sure' it's not the new spark plugs that failed until I can't find failure among the parts I wasn't sure about. This connects to the probabilistic reasoning we discussed in another thread.
Quoting Metaphysician Undercover
Right, and I think this is done successfully in the sciences. With philosophy, politics, and literary criticism, this becomes problematic. What is justice? What is truth? What is God? What is rationality? These aren't innocent, neutral questions. They are territory that is fought for rhetorically. When it comes to words like these, I try to pay attention and get a sense how different individuals use them and attempt to define them in a way that is binding for others.
An anecdote for context: I don't call myself a 'philosopher' and those who don't read much philosophy because I don't want to be mistaken for someone who claims to have special access to the 'true' meaning of these master words. I know or trust that in fact I'll be perceived as someone with mere opinions that are dressed up with this demystified-for-them word 'philosophy.' Of course I like the genre philosophy, and I've learned much from it, in my own eyes. But I can also see a certain kind of philosophy from the outside as a kind of pseudo-profound self-important handwringing. At its worst, it pretends to be a kind of armchair science or word math. This isn't aimed at academic philosophy, but rather at a trait especially common in a certain kind of male human, not necessarily young. In short, my comments are largely the expression of a preference for one style of thinking and talking as opposed to another. To some degree I do philosophy to clarify intuitive or gut-feeling rejections of ways of thinking and being. I 'put my finger' on why this or that feels wrong.
Why do you think that if someone uses a word it must have a meaning?
The split is determined by the definition used for the word. Every word in the definition that is not already clearly understood gives rise to a new branch leading to a node that is the definition of that word.
I like your choices of other problematic words. All three of those are controversial, and have given rise to great debate over the years. The first part of Plato's Republic is devoted to debate over what Justice is. I find debate over such words as meaningless as debate over the use of 'exist', and I try to avoid use of those words as well. When I do use them, I use them with a meaning I prefer, to which I can give a definition, but it will be a meaning that many people would not accept.
I'll add 'free will' as another example of something that people argue furiously over even though none of them know what they mean by the term. Hume offered a concrete definition that could avoid the confusion, but most philosophers vehemently reject that definition while being unable to offer anything to replace it.
Quoting andrewk
I probably said something like 'if we look to use for meaning,..." I understand myself to be criticizing the sharpness of the distinction between use and meaning. I don't want to abolish the useful and meaningful distinction, only to caution against an insistence on its absoluteness. Or to express a distaste for where this insistence tends to lead thinking.
I understand that, and I continue to see the appeal of the idea. But I still think there's a problem at the branching of the nodes. If I define a word in terms of three nonterminal nodes, for instance, then I have the problem of how those non-terminal nodes 'snap together.' I have to speak ambiguously here, but I want to say that meaning is distributed not only over sentences but over paragraphs and eventually over all practice and word use. As you read this sentence, these words are automatically snapped together for you into a complete thought. The meaning we might want to localize in a particular word is a function of all the other words in sentence. They all have one another as the foundation of their meaning. 'Holism' is a word I associate with this insight.
Quoting andrewk
Indeed. I've read and enjoyed some of the great systematic philosophers. I still 'believe' in parts of their systems personally. I'm not anti-metaphysical. It's an issue of style, really.
Quoting andrewk
That's one of Plato's work that I truly enjoyed. I also liked the Apology. But Plato's dialogues can be annoying. 'Get to the point, Plato.'
Quoting andrewk
I can relate. I use them freely in ordinary life, but I have a sense of the bias and ambiguity that haunts them. I can even relate to the project of trying to squeeze them for their essential juices, except that I've tried that. When I returned to ordinary life among the non-philosophers, it wasn't clear to me that I knew anything important that they did not know. Indeed, a person can become hard to understand (or to like) once they've absolutized ordinary words. Or if they think reading a famous dead person's opinion on the matter gives them authority in their eyes of others on a word's meaning. Of course it will give them authority, if the others are also dazzled by that reputation. But then one is just quoting scripture, which is too easy and not particularly exciting.
Quoting andrewk
Right. For me objectivity also connects with an awareness of how my claims will be perceived. Difference in basic worldviews is palpable. Just as I want to be recognized as a shrewd consumer of claims, I especially value others who are shrewd or critically minded. The 'just the facts' ideal implies an openness to the differing uses that others may have for truth. It also suggests an awareness that one is not a flawless or authoritative interpreter of the situation. A person might say that 'there are no facts, only interpretations,' and this might be true in a particular sense, but only at the cost of wasting a distinction that is fundamental to practical life. Of course it's another one of those vivid hyperboles that serve to soften naively absolutized distinctions, so I see where its purveyor was coming from.
Quoting andrewk
Good example. I was troubled by this once for religious reasons. My failure to make sense of it was a big reason that I eventually doubted the entire theological framework I adopted as child. Our practice suggests that we believe in something like free will and something like determinism simultaneously.
The interesting part for me, especially about Lewis Carrol's Jabberwocky, isn't that it touches something purely subjective or inner, it's how reliably the poem produces images in people despite being some limiting case of use or indeed sense.
Words like 'slithy', 'gyre', 'frumious' 'manxome' are easily understood, words like 'brillig', not so much. The words in the first list sound like their meaning in some sense, like this, brillig is more abstract and denotes a time of day (according to Humpty Dumpty) - people I've spoken about the poem with usually have 'brillig' connoting something like a frigid, frosty but clear starry night.
Non-native English speakers usually have difficulty with slithy, gyre, frumious and manxome. Native speakers understand 'slithy' as 'slimy/lithe', 'gyre' as somewhere between 'gyrate' and 'flutter', 'frumious' as derived from 'furious' and 'fuming' and manxome as close to manly/tough (with tough being seen as close to 'difficult').
I think it's clear that the skeptic doubts the rules. And if this is the case then it makes no sense to say that there are rules to the game of doubt, because the skeptic would doubt those rules as well. That's the nature of free will, we don't have to follow any rules. We may suffer the consequences but we do not have to follow rules.
You are simply taking a determinist perspective and trying to force it upon the free willing skeptic, insisting that the skeptic has no choice but to follow rules. If you accepted free will as a principle you would see that the skeptic does not have to follow rules. To follow rules is a choice which is freely made. The so-called private language argument exposes this. What is private to the individual (doubt) cannot be called "following a rule".
It is a mistake to frame doubt as rational, just like it is a mistake to frame instinct and intuition as rational. These are more like feelings, attitudes, and we attempt to dispose of them with an attitude created by the conscious mind, the attitude of certainty. All doubts are irrational because if they were rational, they'd be certainties, but they cannot be quelled without creating certainty.
I think that this is the only reasonable way to take Moore's proposition, as a demonstration. Then it is a type of justification, demonstrating, this is the type of thing which I call a "hand". But it doesn't serve to ward off the skeptic, because it can only be taken as a proposition, which is inherently a proposal, will you allow me to call this a hand. And the skeptic is free to reject the proposal, for whatever reason the skeptic dreams up. Wittgenstein's position hinges on the assumption that such rejection is irrational. But he puts forward no principles to distinguish irrational rejection of a proposition from rational rejection. Surely it's not always irrational to reject a proposition.
What about the statement "I cannot doubt my existence," doubting my existence shows my existence. This statement cannot be coherently doubted in any world view. Can I doubt that my words are not changing of their own accord? Can I doubt, in any world view, that objects disappear when I'm not looking at them?
The first example I gave cannot be doubted in any world view, nor can it be doubted in any possible universe in which there are rational humans. Thus it's necessarily the case that if there are rational humans, then they cannot coherently doubt their existence. The second example doesn't seem to be logically possible either, viz., that words could change of their own accord.
In the third example, it's certainly logically and metaphysically possible that objects could disappear when I'm not looking at them, so this would be an example of a statement that would fit into your set of parameters. Now this depends not only on a changing world view, but it also depends on the laws of physics within a particular universe.
There are beliefs and/or statements that cannot be doubted in any possible universe where there are rational humans.
There is very little to compare between Wittgenstein and Descartes. Wittgenstein's ability to do philosophy compared to Descartes is like comparing a high school runner to an Olympic athlete. Moreover, Wittgenstein looks at doubt from the view of what can be known, which is the correct place to start.
Quoting Cuthbert
The whole point of Wittgenstein's criticism of Moore is that we can't know we have hands, especially in the context of Moore's proposal.
Quoting Cuthbert
Yes, this is true, but Wittgenstein isn't looking at this from the Cartesian perspective. The important point to understand is that sometimes what can be coherently doubted in one setting, cannot be doubted in another setting. Thus, statements often times only make sense within the confines of a particular use. For example, doubting that one has hands in rare situations can be coherently understood, this is why one cannot easily fit these statements into a set of statements that cannot be doubted. However, there are some statements that cannot be coherently doubted in any possible world.
Quoting Cuthbert
I would reverse this, i.e., "...there is no such thing as knowing in such cases, and therefore no such thing as entertaining doubts either." Doubting follows necessarily from knowing, and epistemology rests on bedrock beliefs, which allows the whole system of knowing and doubting to function.
There is still a problem with using brackets, I tried using brackets in Cuthbert's quote to show where I inserted a word or words, but it left the words out, so I just italicized the words.
Supposing a Christian, Bob, associates some ineffable inner experience with the Holy Spirit, is perfectly happy, and never complains of experiencing confusion. Why would Wittgenstein, the philosophical therapist who hated substantial philosophical theses, think Bob is nevertheless making a mistake? what should be the criterion of correctness here? the opinions of the priesthood? or Bob's happiness?
Supposing Bob compares his religious experiences with fellow Christian Alice, who also says that she identifies the Holy Spirit with her ineffable private sensations.
Given that Neither Bob nor Alice can point to anything public playing the role of the "holy spirit", can Bob and Alice be said to be in agreement here about their ineffable experiences? or is there at most merely a delusion of agreement?
Well from each of their perspectives, experiential agreement might mean "The other appears to perform similar rituals to me and expresses similar sentiments as I do, and that is my criteria for them having the same ineffable experiences of the Holy-Spirit as I do".
In which case Bob and Alice's agreement isn't an illusion relative to their chosen criteria.
The Beetle-in-the Box analogy therefore isn't applicable.
Even I feel I understand what Bob is saying, and I'm an atheist who never practices religion. So am I under a delusion of understanding Bob? According to Alice's opinion and her criteria, the answer is probably yes. Relative to [I]my own[/I] criteria? no.
Wittgenstein's private language metaphors seem to provoke their own misunderstanding, namely that to understand a language is to have [I]absolute[/I] criteria of correctness.
Assertions must only be judged relative to [I]independent[/I] criteria if they are to be interpreted as conveying truth-by-correspondence. That is all. And in my opinion, this is all Wittgenstein was pointing out.
While happiness may be important in our overall well-being, it has nothing to do with whether Bob is making sense when he associates the Holy Spirit with some inner experience. Your question, "What should be the criterion of correctness here?" is important, and that is the issue. There are lot's of people who are perfectly happy while making statements that are senseless, but this is not the issue.
I will try to answer the question of criteria later in the post.
Quoting sime
Yes, this example is what actually goes on in many churches, often Christians associate an ineffable experience with that of the Holy Spirit, and herein lies the problem of senselessness. This is not only true of Christians, but it happens in many other areas of life.
Quoting sime
I don't think they can be in agreement, since there is no way to know if my experience is the same as yours, or Bob's is the same as Alice's. How could we know that the experience is the same? This is why I believe it's the same as the beetle-in-the-box, because there is no way to confirm that what we're looking at is the same thing. Sure we're using the same words, either Holy Spirit in the Christians case, or Beetle in Wittgenstein's example.
I probably wouldn't use the word deluded, I would just say that the words have no meaning. It's like comparing "patent nonsense with disguised nonsense," as Wittgenstein noted. The confusion lies in thinking that because the grammar of the sentence is the same, i.e., the grammar is similar to, "I'm experiencing pain." So we think that the same sentence "I'm experiencing the Holy Spirit," is also referencing my inner experience in the same way. However, the difference is that pain has something that is crucial to learning how to use the word, viz., pain behavior. Imagine trying to teach a child how to use the word pain without the outward signs of pain (crying, moaning, complaining, etc.). We don't teach a child pain behavior by pointing to some inner experience apart from the outward signs. The outward signs are crucial to learning how the word is used, without which there would be no correct or incorrect use of the word.
We could ask ourselves what would be the incorrect use of the statement "I'm experiencing the Holy Spirit," especially if there were no outward signs that we could associate with correct usage, or incorrect usage. In other words, whatever you think is an experience of the Holy Spirit would be an experience of the Holy Spirit.
Quoting sime
Yes, they might suppose that, but the question is, is that correct? For example, suppose that a group of people believed that their inner experiences were from aliens. They all had similar rituals and sentiments, and they all talked in similar ways, pointing to their inner experiences as a way of confirming that aliens talk to them. We could also imagine these people developing complex beliefs regarding their beliefs just as Christians do. Wouldn't we think something was amiss in these kinds of beliefs?
Quoting sime
Yes, I think many people feel they understand what Bob is saying. The reason that you feel you understand is that we all have inner experiences, and we experience private experiences, at least we think we do. But even the words inner experience wouldn't make sense apart from shared outward signs. If it was true that nothing outward was required, then we could suppose that rocks have inner experiences too. There has to be some outward manifestation that connects up with language and the use of words that are associated with such behavior in particular contexts. In other words, language has to have a social context where rules of use are observed, and where right and wrong can be delineated.
Note that private experiences that are described using language, that have no way of determining whether one is using the words (Holy Spirit or Beetle) correctly, is the same as trying to devise your own private language. The problem of course, is that there is no way to know if you are following your own rules correctly. As Wittgenstein pointed out, whatever will seem right to you, will be right. Rules of usage don't happen privately. They happen as language develops within social settings where rules of use can be observed.
Quoting sime
Wittgenstein would never say that there is some absolute criteria of correctness. In fact, just the opposite. Consider his example of the use of the word game, there is no absolute criteria of correctness, there are just a variety of uses in a variety of contexts. There is nothing absolute about it.
Quoting sime
Actually this is closer to Wittgenstein's Tractatus, and is not something that Wittgenstein would have said in his later analysis of language.
I would suggest reading PI 243-326.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndS5MPoH4Zc
This leaves out the part where we also feel the pain and learn to associate our sensation with how other people are talking and behaving. Our ability to do this probably has something to do with being able to empathize with others and infer their mental states. Thus psychopaths exhibit a kind of deficit in not being able to understand why people feel certain ways, only that they can be fooled by faking the emotion.
There are some rare cases where individuals do lack an ability to feel pain. If you snuck up and pricked one of them with a pin, they wouldn't yell "Ouch, that hurt!". Nor would they go to a doctor to complain about some bodily pain.
Now imagine a world where we evolved without pain sensation. Harm would still exist as a word, but not pain. Similarly, if we were intelligent cave bats, visual concepts would not form part of our language.
How do I know when I'm in pain? Because I feel it. Not because I can speak it, but because it hurts.
That makes sense. So going back to your previous posts on Moore's demonstration that he has hands as proof of a physical world, ordinary language supports naive realism. This was fine until people starting reflecting on all the ways our perception can either fool us or is relative. And also how perception is based on the kind of creatures we are.
That leads itself to the possibility of skepticism. So if I can have a hallucination of a tree, then questions rise about the nature of perception. On a totally naive view of vision, we're just looking out at the world as it is. The tree I see is the external world tree. But humans came to realize perception is a lot more complicated than just looking out at the world.
So then we see a potential problem with ordinary language. It can be based on naive intuitions. The sun rises and sets. The earth is stationary with four corners. I feel in my heart and courage arises in the intestines. Living things have an animating life force, which could be the blood or the breath. And so on.
Claiming that philosophy goes wrong by abusing the ordinary use of words is ignoring how the ordinary usage of words often enough starts out wrong.
The thing here is that people have often used subjective criteria for knowledge. The Christian will probably say they know because their experience of God gives them evidence just like perceiving seeing the sun lets us know the sun exists.
They will probably reject the idea that knowledge is limited to the empirical or the deductive. The gnostics explicitly advocated for a kind of subjective relavatory knowledge.
You're conflating learning to use the word pain with feeling the sensation of pain. We don't learn to use the word pain based on our private sensations, but we learn to use the word in association with others. This is closely related to the idea of rule-following which is not done in private. Learning a language is necessarily social, so in that sense it's not dependent on what you feel. I'm not saying it has no connection with your sensation, I'm saying that how we talk about pain is necessarily social and not private.
I'm saying it's necessarily both. Consider that humans wouldn't have developed pain talk if we didn't feel pain, just like we wouldn't have a color vocabulary without eyes.
Quoting Sam26
When I say I feel pain, I'm referring to my private sensation of pain. You might infer that I'm in pain because I'm jumping up and down and screaming. Or not, because I've mastered stoicism.
I agree there is a connection between the pain we feel and how we learn to use the word pain. However, note that in order to learn to use the word correctly, both the sensation of pain, and the use of the word are done in social contexts, not privately. So although it's true that without the sensation of pain there would be no talk of pain, that's besides the point. The point is that learning to use the word that is connected with the sensation, again takes place in language-games. This is seen most clearly in Wittgenstein's discussion of having a private language.
It's true that many people make claims to knowledge based on subjective criteria, but that doesn't make it knowledge. If someone claims to know X, you have the right to ask how it is that they know. Surely knowledge isn't simply a claim to know, otherwise any claim to know would be knowing. That would be weird to say the least. If you make a claim that something is true, I may express my doubts by asking how it is that you know, and my doubts will not be satisfied simply because you repeat your subjective claim, that would tell me nothing. This is why it's important to appeal to objective evidence that supports the claim. My doubts about your claim would then be satisfied. Of course sometimes people aren't satisfied even after seeing the objective evidence.
I would claim that their subjective experience of God is not the same as our sensory experience of seeing the sun. The latter is objectively observed, the former not.
Does this mean that a human being raised by wolves couldn't come up with the game, or does it mean that the last survivor of an apocalypse couldn't play the game?
Because it seems like I can certainly play the game when I'm alone. I hear footsteps late at night in an old house by myself. I go investigate and realize it's just the house creaking along with my imagination.
Yes, any language by definition is social due to the nature of rule-following, which is part of the point of Wittgenstein's private language argument. So the correct and incorrect use of a word is something we do together, and this is an important logical point about the nature of language. However, don't confuse this with the idea of the private use of language, i.e., once I've learned a language, then I can use it privately, but that is always subject to the rule-following nature of language, not the other way around. The point is that you cannot develop and language which is completely private. This is difficult for some people to swallow, but I think that's because some people confuse having a private language with using a language privately.
However, I just listened to a podcast on Parmenides, who provided a rational argument for disbelieving the empirical world in favor of the real world of the unchanging sphere.
It sounds silly, but what Parmenides did was build an argument based on the idea that all differentiation implies not-being, which doesn't exist. Red is not blue, cold is not hot, and so on. And since only being exists, there can be no actual differences, and as such, the world we experience is an illusion.
This in turn had a big influence on various ancient philosophers, including the Atomists, who said that it was atoms and not-being (the void) which are what really existed, and Plato, who said it was the eternal forms. And in Indian philosophy, you had the notion that only consciousness exists. So again, the idea that the empirical world is somehow an illusion.
Now we might very well take issue with those positions, but it does show how you can go about disputing the empirical, and thus the hinge propositions.
The reason for mentioning the above is that although Wittgenstein is pragmatically right in that the hinge propositions form the background for our understanding, they don't necessarily refute skeptical arguments, to the extent one is inclined to listen to skeptical reasoning.
In everyday life, they dissolve our skeptical worries, but that wouldn't sway someone like Parmenides. You would have to attack his argument directly, instead of pointing out that he's writing his poem with one of his hands.
There are many different skeptical arguments that find their way into the thinking of people, some are justified, some are not. I don't think many of these arguments have much force.
Quoting Marchesk
Ya, it wouldn't do much good to tell him he can't doubt the proposition because it's an undoubtable empirical proposition that he has hands. His argument can be attacked very easily, but I'm not going to deal with his argument directly. I've already dealt with it indirectly.
The one question that is important to ask, is if it makes sense to doubt propositions like "I have hands," or other propositions that have already been mentioned. Doubting these kinds of propositions makes no sense, i.e., there aren't good reasons to doubt. I'm not saying that there aren't good reasons to express doubts in some contexts, obviously there are, but in Moore's contexts there aren't.
But despite there not being a something, the game takes place; and has a role. We do things with our talk of pain.
What are we to make of "I know how to ride a bike"?
The justification here, if there is one, is in riding the bike. The doing makes the knowing so.
I haven't ridden one for a few years - perhaps I've forgotten how...
Or I suffer an inner ear infection that makes balance impossible, and so cannot demonstrate my skill; do I still know how to ride?
Well, it's similar to knowing how to count to ten, it's knowledge as a skill. The evidence or the justification is in the doing. If you say you can ride a bike, then get on and fall on your butt, then you don't have the skill. It doesn't matter that you once had the skill. The point is that your claim is no longer true.
I don't remember the context of this quote. I believe the point was, that if there was no pain behavior, the word pain would be practically meaningless. The pain behavior in social settings is what gives meaning to the word pain. The pain behavior also reflects a mental state, although the mental state in itself doesn't confer meaning. It's the mental state along with the behavior in social settings. Without the mental phenomena there would be no behavior in social settings. I'm not saying that mental states are objects that the word latches onto. So it goes something like this: mental states - behavior - words in social contexts - meaning - but it doesn't work in reverse, that is, you can't point back to the mental state to give the word meaning. The mental state is not an object that confers meaning. Repeating for emphasis.
I'm thinking about this in relation to the following from @Snakes Alive:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/214348
He's relearning the use of a word, just as a child would learn to use a word. I don't see the connection between what you said above and this video.
It's not just a matter of doing things in a language-game, it's doing things correctly.
If you knew how to ride but lost the capacity to balance...
Do you maintain the concept of "60"? Do you maintain the concept of bike riding?
I am not as happy as you might be, to admit mental states into
Quoting Sam26
because it is made distinct from behaviour. I suspect a consequence of the approach Wittgenstein takes is to join mental states and behaviour - but that becomes a clumsy wording and leads to my (and his?) being accused of behaviourism.
It's more that the state of a brain and the performance of some act, or better, group of similar acts, are related.
Ya, it may lead to people accuse you of behaviorism, but I'm surely not going to let accusations dictate my beliefs. People will always misunderstand things, including myself, but all I'm doing is letting Wittgenstein's thoughts, as I interpret them, lead me to new avenues of thinking.
People also think that Wittgenstein promoted the idea that meaning is equivalent to use, or that language-games are what determine meaning. These are just misunderstandings.
Causally, no less...
So Sam...
With Witt's strict application of the phrase "I know", aren't there things that we can surmise about his thoughts on the matter that perhaps he had not written down, but was still in process, or some such?
Doesn't Witt claim that knowledge must be dubitable? Wouldn't that condition disqualify Moore's claim all by itself?
Yes, in fact I've done this with my foundationalist idea's based on Witt's hinge-propositions. I also think there is much more that can be surmised, namely, that there is a causal link between our sensory perceptions and many of these hinge-propositions or bedrock beliefs. Whether or not this causal link will hold up to scrutiny I'm not sure.
Quoting creativesoul
Yes, isn't that his point? All knowledge claim are doubtable, and if they're not, like Moore's claims, then there not knowledge claims, they're beliefs of a different sort (bedrock).
I'm a strict determinist...
:wink:
You're right though. There are more than one legitimate relation between the brain state and groups of similar activities. The attribution of meaning being one. Showing meaning when there's more than one person involved... "Block!"...
What do you have in mind though? I'm certain it's different than what I've said...
:smile:
Her thinking was not seperate from this bodily activity; nor from the items on the shelf, or the phone. Thinking is not just something that happens in minds.
Yeah. Sorry, I was more hesitant than was warranted. I wasn't certain about the accuracy of my recollection. It's been a while since I seriously read OC, aside from a bit here and there in order to refresh for discussion with you, Banno, and a few other Witt fans...
I would readily agree. Give me another few years, and I'll have you on board before you know it!
:wink:
So...
On what ground would one base such a condition for knowledge?
Why must all knowledge claims(I'm assuming empirical claims) be able to be doubted?
Where else would it happen? In other words, if we're talking about the concept, the concept thinking gets its life from the actions you pointed out, but it's not as if thinking can be generated apart from minds. Minds are necessary. It's as if you want to say the actions in themselves are the thinking, but my disagreement with you, I think, lies in the difference between how a concept gets its life and what's going on in the brain. The two are inseparable.
If this wasn't so, then one could infer knowledge from a simple claim that one knows. It has to be more than reasonable that in many situations the knowledge claim is something to be demonstrated.
So, it's about the justification aspect?
Many empirical claims are bedrock, i.e., they are outside our epistemological language-games.
Now I need to go back to Moore, and have a re-read. Does he mention certainty in his text? I don't recall his doing so. The introduction of certainty into he discussion is I think down to Wittgenstein.
I know how to ride a bike - and can demonstrate my knowledge by riding a bike. I know I have a hand - and can demonstrate my knowledge by waving my hand. Bikes and hands form the world in which such language takes place.
Quoting Sam26
That's close. I don't see how knowing I have a hand could be purely what's going on in the brain; it must, at the least, also involve a hand.
You have posited that the connection between hinge propositions and the world is somehow causal. I picture this as that somehow having a hand causes the hinge belief that I have a hand. I don't agree with that line of thinking. I think it would be better to think something like, that having a hand and believing one has a hand are much the same thing - "inseparable", as you say. After all, to believe on has a hand, one has to understand ownership in some way, and what hands are in some other.
Surely everyone knows that self-satisfaction plays no crucial role in being justified...
Quoting Banno
This lets me know what Moore and I have always had in common that I had yet to have ascertained...
Moore is also getting beneath language in the sense of setting out what language creation and/or acquisition is existentially dependent upon.
Wittgenstein points out that Moore's use of the word know is more an expression of subjective certainty (OC, 21 and 42). He says this because Moore's use of the word seems to reflect something indubitable, which if the case, would imply that we can infer from Moore's propositions that we too know.
Wittgenstein, wants us to consider the proposition's negation, namely, "I don't know this is a hand," which helps us understand how out of place Moore's use of know is.
Quoting Banno
If I believe I have a hand, then yes, the belief involves the hand. I'm not saying otherwise. Only that it's both, the mind and the hand. I'm not stressing one over the other, but you seem to want to stress the hand and the action as somehow superior. They work together. If anything the belief is dependent on the mind, not the other way around. The mind is not dependent on the actions or the belief being expressed. Without the mind there would be no actions or beliefs. No cultural setting for your belief to manifest.
In order for us to attribute a mind to something, it does require actions of some kind, otherwise how would we know we have minds. However, this is a language point, that is, the concept mind would be senseless apart from the actions of minds. My point is partly linguistic, but also partly non-linguistic.
Yes. Thinking doesn't have a definitive spatiotemporal location. It owes it's existence to a plethora of simpler things. One is physiological sensory perception. Another is an external world. Another is some innate instinctual state of mind... Fear and Hunger suffice.
A potential problem here is that there are disorders in which people believe parts of their body don't belong to them. There are also disorders in which they completely ignore the left or right side of their body.
That means the belief is separable from the having a hand under special circumstances, and this is due to a brain injury or disorder, which places the belief in the brain.
Someone after watching the Matrix or Inception movies. We can agree that in an everyday sense it's foolish, but philosophical doubt raises the possibility that we could be wrong. Thus the simulation, BIV, demon arguments.
Also, I can dream about my hands, but those might not be my external hands. Moore's proof isn't a proof, it's an appeal to common sense.
Yes, if your neuromuscular system is capable of doing so. All you need to demonstrate it is to have you ear infection cured. Do you doubt it's in principle possible for a medical examination to reveal the capacity?
It must be the case that you store that capability somehow, or you would not be able to ride again, without going through a relearning process?
What you've called "philosophical" I would call "radical". It is borne of failing to draw the distinction between thought and belief and thinking about thought and belief.
Such doubt is belief based. All belief consists of meaningful correlations drawn between different things.
Right, and there's your argument in the other thread which I said I agreed with. But, what the dream argument shows is that it's possible to have an experience of my hands without them being external. We can differentiate between dreaming and being awake, but that possibility of having non-external hand experience still remains. Which means there could be radical scenarios in which it's actually the case.
As such, Moore waving his hands about doesn't defeat the skeptic, it just reinforces that such doubt is radical. But the skeptic can just reply, "Yeah and so what? I already knew that skepticism was radical to common, everyday sense."
What reason is there to believe that one can dream of hands prior to thinking about them?
None, but it opens to door to having experiences of hands that are not external in other scenarios that could possibly be the case, as far as we know.
As such, Moore's argument isn't an argument to trot out against Bostrom's ancestor simulation argument, or a Boltzman brain.
And if thinking of hands is existentially dependent upon and external world?
Then there has to be an external world. But that leaves several radical skeptical scenarios as possibilities.
That misses the point. Do you know how to ride despite not being able to ride? That is, while suffering the inner ear infection.
I humbly suggest that there is no right answer here - or if you prefer, we can say either that: they do know how to ride, but cannot demonstrate it; or that they do not know how to ride, because they cannot demonstrate it; and that there is no reason to prefer one answer over the other.
Sure; but belief and truth are not private. What makes this case interesting is exactly the extraordinary split between belief and the world: that in this case having a hand and believing one has a hand are erroneously separated.
Excellent phrasing.
Thanks.
The problem of course, is that natural language is it's own meta-language; it is therefore incapable of expressing a distinction between the publicly linguistic and the privately non-linguistic. This is why, contra-Wittgenstein, I think natural language is inappropriate for discussing philosophy. What you need is a special notation for signifying your pretheoretic and private sense of "hand".
I'm not sure how your response is connected with what I was saying. It sounds more like you misunderstood my point.
It's interesting to note that foundational doctrines and structuralist assertions within the field of philosophy have only led to very few bedrock or hinge propositions. Such, as "I think, therefore, I am", and the next closest thing as the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which has been discredited as of late. Hence, I find a discrepancy between the intuitionalist assertions such as "If a lion could speak, we would not be able to understand its speech." and what Wittgenstein asserts in his On Certainty. He kind of highlights this with the assertion that it may be raining outside; but, one could doubt this, legitimately or alternatively with his assertion that you cannot disprove the existence of a rhinoceros within the room, where he was speaking with Russell about.
What do you think?
Actually there are many bedrock beliefs, in fact, too many to list. The examples you give are not bedrock. The following are some...
2+2=4
I have hands.
I live on the Earth.
My name is Sam.
This is a tree.
That is a person.
etc, etc.
Wittgenstein's ideas about hinge-propositions are quite unique as far as I can tell. And by the way, his ideas are not the same as traditional foundationalism.
What may I ask are they? I haven't yet figured out this aspect of Wittgensteins philosophy?
I'm repeating myself in a lot of ways, but it helps to re-word some of these ideas to make them a bit clearer. As I've already stated there are two kinds of hinge-propositions or bedrock beliefs. First, there are those that occur in language. For example, the rules of chess are bedrock to the game, along with the board and pieces. Second, there are those that occur prior to language. For example, the belief that we have hands is something we learn prior to language, and the belief manifests itself when we use our hands. What can be confusing is that we can state these prelinguistic beliefs once we learn a language, as Moore did (I have hands.). So, how do we know when a beliefs is prelinguistic? Any belief that manifests itself in our acts or actions is most likely a hinge-proposition or bedrock belief.
If you mean by prelinguistic as intuitionalist, then I agree.
Then what is it?
So, juxtapose what you have just said with:
327. If a lion could talk, we wouldn’t be able to understand it.
I must insist that this is at the very least some derivative of intuitionalist thought. Don't you think?
No, again it has nothing to do with intuitionalist thought. It's quite different. Why would you think that?
Here is the context:
323. “What is internal is hidden from us.” — The future is hidden from us. — But does the astronomer think like this when he calculates an eclipse of the sun?
324. If I see someone writhing in pain with evident cause, I do not think: all the same, his feelings are hidden from me.
325. We also say of a person that he is transparent to us. It is, however, important as regards our considerations that one human being can be a complete enigma to another. One learns this when one comes into a strange country with entirely strange traditions; and, what is more, even though one has mastered the country’s language. One does not understand the people. (And not because of not knowing what they are saying to themselves.) We can’t find our feet with them.
326. “I can’t know what is going on in him” is, above all, a picture. It is the convincing expression of a conviction. It does not give the reasons for the conviction. They are not obvious.
327. If a lion could talk, we wouldn’t be able to understand it.
So, Wittgenstein even uses the expression "internal", "in", "enigma"(?, intentions?). Which, then finally culminates in the statement of 327. Perhaps he is trying to imply that the grammar the lion would use, would be fundamentally different than our own, or that its frame of reference is not the same as that of English speakers. Which, can only lead to the conclusion that internally the lion is quite different than us. Yes?
Sorry, I was just bringing up some questions that I've accumulated in regards to Wittgenstein's Investigations, that are lingering in my mind.
Thanks for your input.
So the sentence "It is raining, but I know that it is not raining" also makes sense, when one is verbally certain about one's beliefs but comes to question one's behavioural "bedrock". So philosophers shouldn't equate behaviorally implied beliefs with verbally expressed beliefs.
Ironically, lucid dreamers use the presence of their dream hands within a dream as a cue to detect that they are dreaming. Said in this dream situation, is the sentence "I know I have hands" a hinge proposition or an epistemological claim? If a dreamer insisted the former they would fail the reality check and remain non-lucid.
I would say that anytime it makes sense to say, "I know I have hands," whether dreaming or not, then it's not a hinge-proposition. Wittgenstein gives an e.g. in On Certainty where it makes sense to say "I know I have hands," e.g., after waking from an operation with bandaged hands. Hinge-propositions, as you probably know, are non-epistemic. It's senseless to say "I know...," or "I doubt..." if it's hinge or bedrock. If someone insisted in saying that such a proposition was epistemic, it would just be senseless, as in Moore's propositions.
I'm not sure I follow the reality check idea in reference to bedrock beliefs.
Let me just say again that I'm expanding on what Wittgenstein is saying in his notes, I'm not claiming that Wittgenstein would agree with me, or that this is where he was leading.
Do you think Wittgenstein's goal in OC was at some foundationalist attempt, despite there being a lot of controversy about logical foundationalism in the TLP, and contextualism or correspondence in the Investigations?
No, that wasn't his goal, although some might think so based on some of the things he said. I don't agree with your characterization of the TLP or the Investigations.
I hope things are well with you Wallows.
https://philosophicalthinking.createaforum.com/general-discussion/
Could you expand on your views of the TLP's theory of truth along with the Investigations? And, ultimately his final views on theories of truth found in the OC?
Quoting Sam26
Just squeaking along. :blush:
There is no theory of truth in the PI.
Keep in mind that I'm constantly re-writing these posts.
Does Wittgenstein claim that there are bedrock beliefs? In PI he says:
The context is justification for following a rule.
As I understand it, according to OC, a hinge proposition is one, as the name suggests, one's on which other propositions turn. They are neither prelinguistic nor non-empirical:
It is not that they cannot be doubted but that they are not doubted.
Hinge propositions are bedrock. Instead he uses the analogy of the river and its banks:
Rather then bedrock beliefs he says:
How can a proposition be prelinguistic or nonlinguistic? A proposition is by definition linguistic.
Quoting Sam26
Consider the following:
This is interesting for two reasons. First, the example no longer works. The river banks have changed. It is no longer certain that no one has ever been on the moon. Second, note "our system" includes "our whole system of physics". It is not that the system is foundational to hinge propositions but that hinge propositions form part of the system. As he says at the end of 105, the system is not so much the point of departure, as the element in which arguments have their life. The system is the whole of it - what we believe, what we accept without question, language, what we are told, what we learn, what we discover, hinge propositions, and what turns on them.
Quoting Sam26
At 305 he says:
Just as there is no fixed point from which we can observe the motion of the universe, there is no fixed foundation for our knowing. Our subjective certainties are not fixed and unchanging. Our subjective certainties are not the foundation. That we are subjectively certain of something is not prior to but occurs within our epistemic system.
So you have said, but where does W. say this?
Quoting Sam26
That may be true in some cases but I do not see where W. says that all hinge propositions are like this.
Quoting Sam26
I don't think they are causally based. When I have more time I will try to find relevant passages.
A proposition may express a belief but it is not a belief.
Quoting Sam26
Are you claiming that there is a picking up a cup of coffee state of mind or the act of brushing your teeth state of mind?
Quoting Sam26
I do not pick up a toothbrush because I believe there is a toothbrush. My belief about the toothbrush is not simply that there is a toothbrush but that it is used to brush teeth and that brushing my teeth is an important part of hygiene.
Quoting Sam26
Do you think that this is in line with or contrary to Wittgenstein's claim about the spade being turned at bedrock?
Do I see the duck-rabbit one way or another because something causes me to see it one way or the other? Can the cause of seeing one way be the same as seeing it the other?
That there are things in the world is not something a child believes, but neither is it something she doubts.
Supposing a speaker, perhaps a schizophrenic, behaved in a certain fashion while talking in a contradictory manner about his actions (much like a politician). Whereabouts is the contradiction between his actions and his words? Is it in the speaker's mind? or does the contradiction purely concern linguistic convention, with any confusion being solely in the mind of the listener as a result of misinterpreting the speaker?
Supposing a speaker incorrectly guesses the lottery numbers. What is the difference between saying "the speaker's guess about the lottery outcome was wrong" versus saying "the speaker's 'guess' was correct, for he didn't really intend to win the lottery, for his report was in fact a causal response to his environment and we mistook his words for a prediction" ?
The problem is, there aren't any conceivable means for distinguishing the content of a bedrock belief from the content of a verbal belief apart from appeals to linguistic convention. And if beliefs, whether bedrock or verbal, are causal responses, then they cannot be objectively falsified, since behavioral goals are also interpretable in terms of causal responses to immanent environmental conditions.
I agree, but I'm talking about propositions in the context of OC, specifically in the context of someone saying or writing out their belief. I should have been clearer.
Quoting Fooloso4
My claim is that the act of picking up the cup shows that we have beliefs about cups, or beliefs about toothbrushes - not that there is a cup of coffee state-of-mind.
Quoting Fooloso4
I didn't say that you pick up a toothbrush because you believe there is a toothbrush. I said, that the act of picking up a toothbrush shows that I believe there is a toothbrush to pick up. The other reasons you give are linguistic reasons.
Quoting Fooloso4
I'm not trying to be in line with or against Wittgenstein's ideas, I'm developing a theory of epistemology based on some of his ideas, and my interpretation of where some of his ideas lead.
I don't understand what the duck rabbit idea has to do with what I'm saying.
Your questions don't reflect a clear understanding of what I'm trying to say, which maybe a fault of mine, I'm not sure at this point.
The following is a link to some similar ideas to mine, although not entirely similar, but close.
https://www.academia.edu/7298912/Hinge_Propositions_and_the_Logical_Exclusion_of_Doubt
On this we disagree. I do not think belief enters into the picture unless someone asks whether I believe that what is see in front of me is a toothbrush. When I put my foot on the ground and stand up or walk I do not believe the ground is solid and that I can stand and walk on it. I simply do what I have always done ever since I learned to stand and walk. We stand and walk long before we form beliefs about such things. I take it that this is W.'s point regarding children and animals. Consider the rooting reflex. A newborn has not formed a belief.
Quoting Sam26
That is my point. I do not just pick up anything, I pick up the toothbrush to brush my teeth. I do not do that unless I believe in the benefit of brushing my teeth.
Quoting Sam26
This is problematic because it is not always clear where you are interpreting him and where you are developing your theory. Your "interpretation of where some of his ideas lead" is ambiguous. It is an interpretation of his ideas or an interpretation of where his ideas lead? In the former case the question arises as to how convincing of your interpretation is, in the latter whether you have understood him correctly need not come into question, except you say that what you are doing is "an expansion of his thoughts". However interesting or important your theory is, it cannot be an expansion of his thoughts if you have misrepresented his thoughts.
Quoting Sam26
It speaks to your claim that many bedrock beliefs or hinge-propositions are causally formed. There is nothing that causes me to see it one way or the other. The same goes for whatever you might claim is a bedrock belief or hinge-proposition. If you did not know what a duck or a rabbit was you would not see a picture of a duck or rabbit but that does not mean that knowing what a duck or rabbit is causes you to see it that way.
That is pretty close to what i thought you were saying. I wasn't questioning your views, just pointing to directions of further discussion.
When he says:
we should not overlook "in deed". I take this to mean, in practice. It is not that these things are indubitable, but that a great deal hangs and pivots on them. If they are doubted then everything that depends on them becomes doubtful. That does not mean that they cannot be doubted but that they are not doubted. They are fixed, but not in some absolute unchangeable way.
The sun revolves around the Earth may have at one time been a hinge proposition. There is much that hung on it, including astronomical calculations and existential beliefs. One was as certain of it as one was that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. It belonged to the logic of their scientific investigations that this was in deed not doubted.
In terms of OC 342 Wittgenstein points out that any investigation, including scientific investigations, there are certain things that are not doubted. For example, our sensory perceptions are generally trusted, without which we would not get very far. The deed is at the bottom of this trust.
It would not be possible to doubt without somethings standing fast for us. Doubts are parasitic on that which is not doubted.
Some hinges can change over time, but other hinges stand fast.
I have seen some commentators who treat them as such, but I have found nothing in On Certainty or other texts of Wittgenstein's that make that identification.
What hangs on "know this is my hand"? What role does it play in any of our ordinary language games? Where does it even occur? Why would anyone even say such a thing except in extraordinary circumstances or when one is "doing philosophy?
I am skeptical of the explanations we find in the literature that rely on some theory.
The one example of a hinge is:
The whole book is about Moore's propositions, and the fact that they are hinge propositions. If any commentator said otherwise he would be laughed at. I would challenge you to find someone who said otherwise, especially a philosopher. I've been studying this book for years, and have read papers on the subject from philosophers all over the world, and I have not found one commentator who would make such an assertion.
Laughter is no substitute for evidence and philosophical argument. Again, what hangs and pivots on Moore's claim that he knows he has hands? The whole book is about doubt and certainty. It was prompted by discussion with Malcolm about Moore's propositions, but it does not follow that Moore's claim to know he has hands stands as a hinge. Not everything we accept serves as a hinge. Further, the problem of how this claim serves as a hinge when Wittgenstein finds it so problematic must be addressed.
Quoting Sam26
If you were to raise this challenge against some of the more recent readings of Wittgenstein fifty years ago, would you have found someone who agreed with these readings?
The literature on hinge propositions is not very extensive and fraught with disagreement and is based on an incomplete first draft of issues W. was thinking his way through.
So, how does the proposition "I know that here is one hand" serve as an axis? Moore's proposition: "The earth existed for a long time before my birth" might function in this way, but just because I don't doubt that I have hands does not mean it is a hinge.
[Edit]: More precisely it is not Moore's claim that the earth existed for a long time before my birth that serves as a hinge, but rather, propositions that inform it. Propositions about the age of the earth.
What would make one a hinge but not the other?
I edited my post soon after posting it:
Quoting Fooloso4
The age of the earth informs geology, evolution, astronomy, and so on. I know that here is a hand serves no such function.
From an earlier post:
As I understand it, according to OC, a hinge proposition is one, as the name suggests, on which other propositions turn.
In that case why doesn't he just call them beliefs?
Is the one example of a hinge proposition given - 12x12=144, a belief? Isn't that proposition true whether one believes it or not? If it is true (or false) whether I believe it or not, then at least one hinge proposition, the only one given, is not a belief.
If it is a belief then what does one believe when he believes 12x12=144? That he has done the calculation correctly? That there are numbers? That 12 and 144 are numbers? That numbers can be multiplied? Are each of these things hinge beliefs? Are hinges based on hinges? Is there a first in the series or does each depend on the other?
Is 12x12=144 non-epistemic, as you claim hinge propositions must be? Or is it something known? Something that can be rationally demonstrated?
Is 12x12=144 pre-linguistic as you claim hinge propositions must be? Does one hold a pre-linguistic belief that there are numbers and they can be multiplied? It should be kept in mind that Wittgenstein held that mathematics was a human invention. Can a pre-linguistic humans invent mathematics?
I tend to agree with Fooloso4 here that propositions are not necessarily beliefs. A proposition could be about something absurd and/or probably false, such as: there are twelve dogs in the Andromeda Galaxy. Nobody needs to believe this for it to be a proposition.
"I believe in freedom, justice, and equality." Is that proposition true or false?
Quoting Sam26
I don't believe it, I know it. I know how to calculate and I've done the calculations. Others have done so as well.
The state of mind or belief regarding the calculation is unimportant.
If hinge propositions are beliefs then it is not that they differ from epistemic propositions because of different corresponding mental states.
You have claimed that Moore's "I know ..." are hinge propositions and that hinge propositions are beliefs. But Moore does not claim that they have subjective truth, he presents them as objective evidence in support of the existence of the external world. He claims not simply to believe but to know.
"I know that I have two hands" is not a belief. It does not express just my subjective certainty. The irreversible belief that I have two hands is not a proposition.
Quoting Sam26
You are equivocating. Moore does not say: "I have hands", he says, "I know I have hands" which is not the same as saying "I believe I have hands".
What is the ordinarily use the proposition "I believe I have hands"?
I do not doubt I have hands simply because I have been using them my whole life. The belief that I have hands is something that develops at some point after I have been using my hands. A newborn baby does not suck its thumb because it believes it has a hand or a thumb. It does not grasp things because it believe it has hands and that there are things to be grasped. As it gets a bit older it does not watch it's hand move as it moves without its being able to control the movement or gradually gain control of it because it believes it is it's own hand and that there are things to be held with it. It reaches and grasps. These actions are not manifestations of mental states.They are not mind dependent. This is why Wittgenstein points to other animals. Not all animals have brains and thus do not have mental states, and yet they are able to respond to their environment.
It's true that you believe in those things. Is it not?
Quoting Fooloso4
You're saying what Moore is saying, that is, it is on par with his claim to know he has hands. This is what Wittgenstein is arguing against. What would it mean to doubt that 12x12=144? If it does not make sense to doubt it, it does make sense to claim to know it. This is what OC is all about. Hinges are not epistemological.
Quoting Fooloso4
I'm not sure what this has to do with what we're talking about. In terms of meaning this is true, meaning has nothing to do with your state-of-mind.Quoting Fooloso4
Don't talk to me like I no nothing about the subject, as if I haven't read Moore's papers. He actually says, "Here is one hand." But these are things he claims to know, as he argues with the skeptics.
If propositions need not be beliefs, then you shouldn't say that propositions are beliefs.
I hate to get picky, but one use of the word 'all' is to speak generally. So, if I say "all of you are sinners" does that mean the babies in the audience too? Does 'all' always have the force of necessarily each and every?
I'm not trying to "get" you, Sam, except to get you to acknowledge that propositions need not be beliefs, which you appear to have done.
Your claim was not that one believes what he claims to believe but that the belief is true or false. It is true that I believe those things but that does not mean that what I believe is true or false. The proposition: "The earth is flat" is not true because I believe it is.
Quoting Sam26
Wittgenstein makes a clear distinction between Moore's propositions and mathematical propositions.
Quoting Sam26
It is your claim that 12x12=144 is a belief and that belief is a state of mind. Wittgenstein, in the cited quotes, denies this. Contrary to your claim about mathematical belief he says "mathematical knowledge". 12x12=144 is an epistemic hinge.
Quoting Sam26
Accusing you of equivocating is not to say you know (or no) nothing about the subject. On the contrary, to equivocate is to use language to hide or obscure a distinction that undermines your claims. Moore's claims cannot be hinge propositions if, as you claim, hinge propositions are statements of belief.
It is the uniform nature of our words that lends itself to theorizing about the general use of meaning. This can be seen clearly in the study of epistemology, namely, what it means to know is not some clearly defined idea without shades of gray. What we get are a variety of uses that do not give us the clarity we are striving for, especially as philosophers. For the most part language hinders our desire for exactness, and our desire for absolute meaning. Instead what we see are words that have a variety of meanings, largely dependent on how they are used in a variety of social activities or "forms of life." The tendency, is to draw arbitrary lines of meaning in order to provide clarity. Where we draw these lines depends on how we view a particular use or definition, that is, what we are stressing. As we stress a particular view of meaning we naturally form an arbitrary boundary that causes more confusion. We tend to get tunnel vision when looking for exactness.
The logic of use that Wittgenstein fosters is one in which the logic is elastic, not given to mathematical precision; and this is seen in the contrast between the exactness of the Tractatus, versus the more elastic view of meaning shown in his later philosophy. His later view is not saying there is no precision, only that we tend to want precision where none can be found. Meaning is not always clearly delineated, but spans a wide variety of uses given in a host of language-games and social activities.
However, there is still another problem, and it is seen by those who think they understand Wittgenstein (including yours truly). The problem is in the application of use as meaning, that is, we find ourselves over emphasizing a particular use that is not in the spirit of Wittgenstein’s enterprise. We tend to push a particular use that is too restrictive, that is, a use that does not allow for the expansive nature of "our forms of life." Thus, we fool ourselves into thinking we are doing what Wittgenstein suggests, but in the final analysis we are using a distorted view of use to perpetuate the very thing Wittgenstein is trying to steer us away from.
What does Wittgenstein mean by “forms of life?” There seem to be at least four ideas behind Wittgenstein’s idea of forms of life. First, the biology associated with human forms of life, i.e., we share breathing, eating, walking, sleeping in common with all human forms of life. Second, the social cultural forms of life, and the wide variety of social cultural forms of life, such as, language, religious beliefs, political beliefs, games, rule-following, scientific pursuits, etc., etc. Third, that which forms our natural and historical environment, viz., living on Earth, the Earth has one moon, the moon didn’t pop into existence five minutes ago, etc. And, fourth, the forms of life associated with other biological animals. All of these make up our forms of life, and they help condition our grammar, and thus our language-games. Our language-games are embedded within the human forms of life.
Forms of life have developed over time, and as such, have been cultivated from more primitive forms of life (“in the beginning was the deed” -Wittgenstein) including the non-linguistic forms of life.
“Being sure that someone is in pain, doubting whether he is, and so on, are so many natural, instinctive kinds of behavior towards other human beings, and our language is merely an auxiliary to, and further extension of, this relation. Our language-game is an extension of primitive behavior (Z 545).”
If we see forms of life within this wide context, we can begin to understand why Wittgenstein would say, “If a lion could speak, we could not understand him (PI).” Even human language-games, embedded in certain cultural beliefs, can leave us wondering what they mean by the use of their words. If you extend this to lions, one can see why this would be problematic.
[i]66. Consider for example the proceedings we call "games." I mean board-games, card-games, ball-games, Olympic games, and so on. What is common to them all? - Don't say: There must be something common, or they would not be called "games" - but look and see whether there is anything common to all. - For if you loom at them you will not see something that is common to all, but similarities, relationships, and a whole series of them at that. To repeat: don't think, but look! -- Look fir example at board-games, with their multifarious relationships. Now pass to card-games; here you will find many correspondences with the first group, but many common features drop out, and others appear. When we pass to ball-games much that is common is retained, but much is lost - Are they all "amusing"? Compare chess with noughts and crosses. Or is there always winning and loosing, or competition between players? Think now of games like ring-a-ring-a-roses; here is the element of amusement, but how many other characteristic features have disappeared!
And the result if this examination is: we see a complicated network of similarities overlapping and criss-crossing.
I can think of no better expression to characterise these similarities than "family resemblances" [...] and I shall say: "games" for a family.[/i]
This paragraph had an important impact in the 1970s, psychologists and linguists. Many human concepts family resemblance categories rather than classical concepts (Aristotelian).
I consider all of this very interesting in terms of linguistics, but I am quite lost in distinguishing Wittgenstein's categories from Aristotle's. If someone could help me, I would appreciate it so much!
Wittgenstein's and Aristotle's categories have different purposes, in that they are trying to achieve different things.
Aristotle's categories are trying to divide the world into features that are independent of each other, for example, organic vs non-organic, where something exists vs when it existed, the properties of an object vs what the object can do using these properties, etc.
Wittgenstein on the other hand is concerned with finding those words within language that may not be thought as independent of each other, such that chess and football fall within the same category of game.
Aristotle would not have an interest in the difference between chess and football as such difference does not contribute to our understanding of how the word is divided into independent categories, whereas Wittgenstein would have an interest in the difference as they are both part of the same category of "game".
Aristotle is using categories to discover differences, whereas Wittgenstein is using categories to discover similarities.
Thank you RussellA, I appreciate your help and how you explained it so clearly. :up:
On the other hand, the Wittgenstein's text that I quoted previously is integrated in a book of Steven Pinker that I am currently reading and this psychoolinguist says: Concepts in the mind pick out categories in the world, and the simplest explanation of concepts is that they are conditions for membership in a category, a bit like definitions in a dictionary. Most of our everyday categories, and not just games, show Wittgenstein's family resemblance and crisscrossing features.
I understand now that language categories are listed for searching similarities instead of differences. For example: The word "vegetables" is criss-crossed by many different products but similar each other.
Well, that's not quite true, Wittgenstein's analysis looked at both differences and similarities. Both are important in linguistic analysis.
Given that concepts in the mind pick out categories in the world, the question is, which came first, the concept in the mind or the category in the world.
Either i) first there are concepts in the mind which then pick out categories in the world or ii) concepts are created in the mind by picking out categories in the world.
Which better explains the world, Innatism or Behaviourism.
For the Innatist, we are born with certain concepts, and then use these concepts to discover categories in the world, such as the category table. For the Behaviourist, there are categories in the world that we discover in order to create concepts in the mind, such as the concept table
Where does the essence of the table exist - as innate concepts in the mind or Platonic Forms in the world.
Where do family resemblances exist - in the mind or in the world.
Malcolm tells the following story
Quoting RussellA
Neither and both. For Witt, these are not categories in the sense of boxes within which the particulars fit. If that were the case, there would be something common to all the particulars. But there is nothing common to all the words that share a family resemblance.
Furthermore, the existence of the particulars is neither strictly in the mind (which is not a box) nor in the world. It is in the relational practices that make linguistic meaning dependent on the enacting of material configurations through our engagement with the social and non-human world. Think of mind though the 4EA moniker: Embodied, Embedded, Enactive, Extended, and Affective.
As Wittgenstein said, board games and card games may not have anything in common, but they do have similarities, which he calls "family resemblances".
[i]PI 66. Consider for example the proceedings that we call "games". I mean board-games, card-games, ball-games, Olympic games, and so on. What is common to them all?—Don't say: "There must be something common, or they would not be called 'games' "—but look and see whether there is anything common to all.—For if you look at them you will not see something that is common to all, but similarities, relationships, and a whole series of them at that.
PI 67. I can think of no better expression to characterize these similarities than "family resemblances"; for the various resemblances between members of a family: build, features, colour of eyes, gait, temperament, etc. etc. overlap and criss-cross in the same way.— And I shall say: 'games' form a family.[/i]
Wittgenstein writes that the meaning of a word exists in the relation between the mind and the world.
PI 43. For a large class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word "meaning" it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language.
Wittgenstein may well be either an anti-realist or idealist
From the IEP article on Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889—1951)
Wittgenstein’s place in the debate about philosophical Realism and Anti-Realism is an interesting one. His emphasis on language and human behaviour, practices, etc. makes him a prime candidate for Anti-Realism in many people’s eyes. He has even been accused of linguistic idealism, the idea that language is the ultimate reality.
Anti-realism is a belief opposed to Realism, which contends that there are things that exist mind-independently.
If Wittgenstein is in fact either an anti-realist or idealist, where there is no mind-independent world, then as for Wittgenstein the meaning of a word is in its relation between mind and world, and as for Wittgenstein the world exists in the mind, then it follows that for Wittgenstein, the meaning of a word must also exist solely in the mind.
There are other ways of thinking about the relation between mind and world than in terms of the binaries realist vs anti-realist or empiricist vs idealist. One need not post mind as having an ‘inside’ that can be distinguished from an outside.
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What other ways are you thinking of, of how the subjective mind of colours, pains, fears and hopes relates to the objective world of rocks, mountains, supernova and gravity.
Quoting RussellA
Joseph Rouse argues:
Merleau-Ponty states:
There are similarities between Rouse's postmodern view that we can never get outside our language and Wittgenstein's view, as a possible anti-realist or linguistic idealist, that the meaning of a word is determined by the language itself rather than any transcendent reality.
Wittgenstein wrote in PI 43 "For a large class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word "meaning" it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language."
As Joseph Rouse wrote about a postmodern view of science - "we can never get outside our language, experience, or methods to assess how well they correspond to a transcendent reality"
Yes, Rouse was heavily influenced by Wittgenstein.
He accepts that there are facts, but facts do not determine concepts. We do not have the concepts we have because the facts are as they are, but if the facts were not as they are our concepts would not be as they are.
The closing remark refers to Darwin's On the Origin of Species. Elsewhere he says:
If we look at species as kinds then we construct our picture of the world, or some aspect of it, in accordance to it, and attend to those facts that conform to this way of looking at things. But if we regard the differences between species as a matter of degree or variation then we begin to take into account facts that were previously overlooked or disregarded. We begin to see not only species but a great many other things differently. There is no fixed, unchanging order to life.
What are we to make of the following?:
Is this an ontology? Yes and no. Grammar does not reveal the being of things as they are, but as they are for us, that is, how we regard them, what they mean for us. This is not the noumenal-phenomenal distinction. It is not metaphysical. Wittgenstein is not concerned with the question of how things are in themselves, but rather with what we say and do. The essence of something, what it is to be what is it, means it's place in our form of life. It is in that sense not fixed and unchanging.
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Conceptual-categorical aspect (not the sound and color and music and ) of the lifeworld, for instance.
Quoting Fooloso4
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Quoting Fooloso4
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FWIW, I think Husserl is right that we 'read off' facts from the way the world is given to us. We see that-the-door-was-left-unlocked both 'sensually' and 'conceptually' at once (the separation of sense and concept is this context is a useful but potentially misleading abstraction.) Yet much of this reading off depends on a form of life. I can only an aquarium from within a form of life where fish are kept in such things for amusement. And then (with Heid., as you know) there's also the circumspective 'seeing' of a couch as for sitting on manifest in plopping down on it unthinkingly, etc. But this too depends on a form of life where soft things are put in certain places with that use being obviously appropriate.
Lately it looks to me that structuralist approaches to meaning (meaning as use, perhaps as inferential role) are illuminating but maybe leave something out. For instance, does 'red' mean more than its inferential role ? Those bornblind can use the concept, be knowledgable about redness. But this is exhaust the redness of red ? Does the structuralist insight rule out a private aspect of reference ?
I don't think it does, and I think a structuralist approach actually helps explain why a structuralist approach, albeit mostly correct, is so unintuitive for most people. I can't learn how to refer to 'pure pain' without membership in a inferential pragmatic culture, but this doesn't mean that I don't intend that pure private pain once I've learn how to structurally. In short, pain is more than the inferential aspect of its concept.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14582/sensational-conceptuality
It seems that the post-modernism of the French post-structuralists in the 1970's can also be traced back to the Wittgenstein's investigation into the limits of language and language in the 1950's.
From a phenomenological realist point of view, the world itself is colorful, noisy, painful. The rose is red. Its thorn hurts my careless finger.
Within this familiar (life-)world, we enrich our knowledge of everyday entities by adding scientific entities which are inferentially entangled and semantically dependent on those everyday entities. So the scientific image is just another 'layer' of the lifeworld -- though even this layer metaphor insufficiently emphasizes the entanglement.
If Structuralism focuses on the way that human experience and behaviour is determined by various structures external to the individual, then it is suffers from the same problem as Behaviourism.
I don't learn how to feel pain as a result of the social world I may happen to live in, but suffer pain, am able to see the colour red, feel anger, etc because of Innatism, in that the mind is born with already-formed ideas, knowledge, and beliefs.
Meaning may be use within a form of life, as Wittgenstein said, but meaning is also in part determined by the fact that we are not born as blank slates.
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I agree. Not long ago, I was too structuralist. Reading some Husserl, who I thought of as 'too subjective' a thinker before closer examination, forced me to reconsider. The world is given only perspectively. This simple fact has huge implications. Just really noting how spatial objects are given to us is illuminating. We so easily take the theoretical posit of the object in Euclidean space (from no/any perspective) for granted as the real object -- because language is so profoundly social that the transparency of the subject is mostly useful --- until one is doing metaphysics.
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I'd say we learn how to conceptualize and discuss a pain and a color that is just there, mostly nonconceptually, as a kind of overflow of any mere intending or labeling of it. I agree that our evolved bodies have innate capacities that make pain and color possible for us. I don't think the dead see color, because I understand that perspectives on the colorful world are given only to creatures which I therefore call 'sentient.'
A nice, almost poetic explanation of Indirect Realism.
Quoting plaque flag
In Kant's terms, we conceptualize our intuitions.
Ah but I think you know it's just an enriched-sophisticated direct realism. Bu if we get into that, it should be on another thread, I suppose ?
Quoting RussellA
Yes. But I'd say that's a theoretical posit. Not incorrect, but a thesis. If we just look at the world we find meaningful objects. Heidegger talks about how the world is grasped largely in terms of a network of 'tools' that we use unthinkingly, gliding through our daily routines. I mostly pre-theoretically even sub-conceptually flip the lightswitch. The screwdriver is invisible in my hand as I focus on the task. This is the real world which we as thematizing primate enrich with powerful maps, largely through a mathematical syntax and a tradition of careful measurement that grasps space in a new way.
In my view, the scientific image is valued because it describes this world and not something hidden under or behind it. As philosophers we are discursive subjects on the scientific 'stage' of a public space of reasons, making a case for this or that articulation of the world we share. The biological complexities of perception are secondary, for we as discursive subjects are not in our skulls behind our eyes --- though a functioning brain is indeed understood to be a condition of possibility for our participation in the drama of science. It makes no sense to rationally doubt the conditions of possibility for rational discussion. So we might as well talk directly about the worldly objects we need to make our cases.
" ..Are certain norms valid, or in force, because certain things such as linguistic expressions and intentional states have certain meanings/contents? Or do such things have meaning/content because some norms are in force? We shall distinguish between meaning/content “engendered” (ME/CE) normativity and meaning/content determining (MD/CD) normativity (cf. Glüer & Wikforss 2009). MD/CD norms are such that they metaphysically determine, ground, or constitute meaning/content; here, the norms are prior. ME/CE normativity is normativity engendered by, or consequent upon, meaning/content, regardless of how the latter is determined. "
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/meaning-normativity/
To understand this question, one must decide the extent to which they consider norms and intentional states are gramatically related, i.e to what extent are norms considered to be part of the very meaning of "intentional states" (or vice-versa)?
Take the following examples:
Suppose a zoologist asserts that a particular species of animal exhibits signs of intentionality. To what extent should the zoologist be interpreted as referring to the norms of zoology, as opposed to the actual "perspective" of the animal in question?
What if an AI engineer asserts that ChatGPT123 demonstrates intentionality. Is their answer more concerned with the norms of AI engineering than in the purportedly more descriptive zoological science example?
And what of our ordinary attribution of other minds? If Alice recognizes that Bob has a mind that is distinct from hers, to what extent should she be interpreted as referring to her personal state of empathy , as opposed to the state of Bob's actual behaviour?
In the case of Wittgenstein's "Beetle in the Box", the specific issue is the relationship between the customs of language that are invariant to personal circumstances and perspective and thus incapable of representing 'private objects' on the one hand, versus the language users who express their personal perspectives using such aperspectival customs. The analogy of a children's playground comes to mind. The function of swings, climbing frames and roundabouts are to accommodate the needs and perspectives of children, in a manner that abides by norms of health and safety. But obviously it would be a terrible category error if one attempted to explain why and how children used playgrounds by appealing to the design of the playground and the norms of the controlling adults. Likewise, the beetle-in the box argument wasn't made to deny the semantic importance of intentional content, but to stress how social customs, such as the custom of physical language, have evolved to facilitate the expression of intentional content.
The language of science also has metaphorical value
An interesting topic that leads into the nature of language. It can be argued that language, including the language of science, is more metaphorical rather than literal.
The scientific image is also valued not because it is able to directly describe the reality of the world but because it allows humans a metaphorical understanding of what cannot be literally understood through the use of metaphor.
Metaphors are commonly used in science, such as: evolution by natural selection, F = ma, the wave theory of light, DNA is the code of life, the genome is the book of life, gravity, dendritic branches, Maxwell's Demon, Schrödinger’s cat, Einstein’s twins, greenhouse gas, the battle against cancer, faith in a hypothesis, the miracle of consciousness, the gift of understanding, the laws of physics, the language of mathematics, deserving an effective mathematics, etc.
Andrew May in Metaphors in Science 2000 makes a strong point that even Newton's second law is a metaphor
"In his article on the use of metaphors in physics (November issue, page 17), Robert P Crease describes several interesting trees but fails to notice the wood all around him. What is a scientific theory if not a grand metaphor for the real world it aims to describe? Theories are generally formulated in mathematical terms, and it is difficult to see how it could be argued that, for example, F = ma "is" the motion of an object in any literal sense. Scientific metaphors possess uniquely powerful descriptive and predictive potential, but they are metaphors nonetheless. If scientific theories were as real as the world they describe, they would not change with time (which they do, occasionally). I would even go so far as to suggest that an equation like F = ma is a culturally specific metaphor, in that it can only have meaning in a society that practices mathematical quantification in the way that ours does. Before I'm dismissed as a loopy radical, I should point out that I'm a professional physicist who has been using mathematical metaphors to describe the real world for the last twenty years!"
As Nietzsche wrote “We believe that when we speak of trees, colours, snows, and flowers, we have knowledge of the things themselves, and yet we possess only metaphors of things which in no way correspond to the original entities.”
As I understand the "Beetle in the Box" - in the world, suppose there is something that has been named by society a "beetle".
When looking at this "beetle", Bertrand actually has the private mental image of an ant, and Russell has the private mental image of a bee. Bertrand can never know Russell's private mental image, and vice versa.
Yet both Bertrand and Russell can have a sensible conversation about "beetles", even if their intentional contents, their private mental images, are different.
Within the language game, private mental images drop out of consideration as irrelevant.
Quoting RussellA
I think the intentional concept has to include the public structuralist aspect of meaning, but that their can be a private founded aspect of meaning made possible by this public aspect.
Nietzsche in other passages gives Kant hell for making the real world (this one) an illusion.
I'd say that we should just look at the entire encompassing lifeworld and acknowledge its entanglement with our nervous system and our metaphors. In this lifeworld, marriages are as real an electrons. Science itself as a normative enterprise only makes sense on a stage of humans trying to be honest and less confused. So even value can't be wiped off like an illusion without paradox.
I'd say it's both. Husserl's categorial intuition is helpful. Once we are 'in' a form of life, including its inferential norms and more basic ostensive norms, we can directly perceive states of affairs (not sense data). I see that my wife is coming in with a bag of groceries, all at once. The world is always meaningful like this. So this puts a constraint on what's intelligible. The meaningstructured world isn't whatever we want it to be, and I don't think we can ignore the structure of typical worldly objects when we are thinking about the meaning of more abstract and complex terms.
Note that I largely agree with inferentialism, so this is a balancing acknowledgement of how meaning is not only structural but also founded on direct perception of worldly objects in relationship.
Let's use the example in Wittgenstein's PI 1 of the colour red.
In the world is an object emitting a wavelength of 700 nm that society has named "red".
Bertrand's private mental image is unknown to us, but suppose when he sees an object emitting a wavelength of 700 nm his private mental image is of green. Similarly, Russell's private mental image is also unknown to us, but suppose when he sees an object emitting a wavelength of 700 nm his private mental image is of blue.
For both Bertrand and Russell, when seeing a wavelength of 700nm, there is a private meaning and a public meaning. For Bertrand, the private meaning is experiencing an intentional content of green and the public meaning is having seen a colour named "red". For Russell, the private meaning is experiencing an intentional content of blue, and the public meaning is having seen a colour named "red".
The private meaning is associated with the public meaning, but the private meaning is not included within the public meaning.
It is the same with Aristotle's Categories, where the categories may be associated with each other even though independent of each other. For example, in the sentence "there are four rocks", where "four" is quantity and rocks is substance.
Private meaning is not made possible by public meaning.
However, one also reads in the Edinburgh Research Archive that Nietzsche was probably an anti-realist, whereby any external reality is hypothetical and not assumed.
Interpretations of Friedrich Nietzsche often suggest that he is some form of anti-realist, i.e. he does not affirm objective scientific truth or understanding of the world. Nietzsche advocates a viewpoint known as perspectivism, which may seem to cement this anti-realist interpretation, insofar as it emphasises the perspectival nature of understanding. Similarly, Justin Remhof interprets Nietzsche as an object constructivist, i.e. that objects within the world are constructed by human concepts, and this also seems to align neatly with anti-realist interpretations.
Do not agree. Public meaning makes private meaning incomprehensible.
We learn what “red” is by being expose to red objects and judging similarly. What goes on inside is irrelevant to the meaning of the concept “red”.
You ask someone to imagine a red object that is experienced by one person as “blue”, another “green”, and another “yellow”. For example, if I experience a red object as “blue” and blue object as “red” and another person experiences a red object as “red” and a blue object as “blue”, what has established the use of “red object” and “blue object” amongst language users? Private experiences of “blue” and “red”? No. Common color judgments of objects with other language users? Yes. In this example, everyone could be experiencing something different, but what holds it together is the shared judgment when exposed to a particular colored object.
Could it be that I have no experience of what we would call “color” but some other experience of a “private” kind? But what could that be and could it ever be communicated? Just saying it is different is not saying anything at all. This idea of “private meaning” is tempting but ultimately vacuous compared to where that idea of “meaning” has its life, among a group of language users talking about a shared reality.
Quoting Richard B
What about pre-linguistic perceptual meanings? Do pre-verbal infants not construct meaning from their surroundings through the use of perceptual-motor schemes?
As human being, we have many primitive reactions that serve us well, like thirst, hunger, pain to name a few. But would we say that an infant has the meaning or the concept of “thirst”, “hunger”, or “pain” before they even learn these words from an adult. No, but they do experience these things and later, adults teach the infant to replace this behavior with language.
There is quite a bit of research in developmental and perceptual psychology indicating that what you are calling primitive reactions is in fact complex conceptual understanding.
Long live theorizing, may you find some pragmatic benefit.
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I think we can also just look at our dogs and cats.
:up:
I think it's more like two sides of the same coin. You talk of wavelengths a moment ago, and I presume you rely on the public inferential aspect of the concept. But it's hard to imagine how you could have a private sense of wavelengths without being immersed in a culture that uses this meaningful token in inferences (explanations.)
I understand why someone would claim this, and I readily agree that the social aspect is necessary. But I don't think it's exhaustive. Ought we deny our experience of intending an object ? Or intending a state of affairs ? Something like the direct experience of meaning ? I think training is crucial for the linguistic version of this, but once trained we have a certain independence and ability to introspect.
I love Nietzsche, so I don't mind the detour, but keeping the function of the author in mind, along with our diligent avoidance of arguing from the fame of the mighty dead, especially one who told us he wore many masks, I present to you what I had in mind originally.
https://www.austincc.edu/adechene/Nietzsche%20true%20world.pdf
Note that Nietzsche also mocked the idea of the sense organs being understood as their own product.
To be clear, I think all kinds of interpretations of Nietzsche can be supported, with none of them, including mine, resolving the issue.
FWIW, I embrace perspectivism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perspectivism
As far as we know, the world is only ever given perspectively. I'd just say that it's the world that is given. The nearsighted person sees the same ball as the colorblind person with 20/20 vision. And this is the same ball that the blind person can talk about. The intentional object is part of public discourse. Any denial of this is a performative contradiction. Rational discussion tacitly assumes the conditions of its possibility. The discursive subject is always already among others, sharing in a language that intends objects and concepts in common, in the world.
On my reading, at least, Wittgenstein does not deny this “something more”, such as the sensation of pain.
To reiterate what Wittgenstein says in PI 305, "But you surely cannot deny that, for example, in remembering, an inner process takes place." What gives the impression that we want to deny anything? When one says "Still, an inner processes take place here"-one wants to go on: "After all, you see it." And it is this inner process that one means by the word "remembering".-The impression that we wanted to deny something arises from setting our faces against the picture of the 'inner process'. What we deny is that the picture of the inner process gives us the correct idea of the use of the word "to remember".
In terms of "introspection", the idea of "introspection" is shown when we share are ideas with other language users, develop ideas with argument, listen to clarifying questions, see if others can apply our ideas, act on them, and even expand on them. What give "introspection" meanings is not what lies hidden within the self, but what is expressed and understood between others.
Thanks for the quote ! I didn't mean to imply that W denied it. Just that a stereoscopic view makes sense.
If you want to dig into this, I started a thread on it.
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14582/sensational-conceptuality
I claim it's both, and I'm happy to debate the point in a friendly spirit. I invite you to join this thread:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14582/sensational-conceptuality
I don't want to mess up anyone's blog.
Thanks, I did see it earlier and was meaning to respond, but didn't want to interrupt your discussion with @Joshs and his view of the radical inconstancy of meaning.
However, I'm not sure whether there is much left to say if W is correct in saying that the private sensation is "not a Nothing", but "a Something about which nothing could be said."
Excellent quotes again. Did you ever check out Husserl ? Might be relevant to this issue.
Quoting Luke
Well @Joshs and I have been off topic (we could be debating rationality in a more appropriate thread), so I hope you stop in and help us get on track.
No, I haven't read any.
Quoting plaque flag
Thanks. I'll take another look and see if I have anything to add.
If you get curious, Zahavi's brief book is dense with great stuff. There's a pdf to circumvent buyer's remorse. (I like paper, but it's nice to be sure first.)
Thanks for the tip, appreciate it. I'll check it out.
I agree. But I think it is important to distinguish words in inverted colours such as "red" from those not in inverted commas, such as red. Otherwise it will be difficult to distinguish between what exists in language and what exists outside of language, whether in thought or the world.
For example, going back to Davidsons theory of meaning, whereby “‘Schnee ist weiss’ is true if and only if snow is white.”. "Schneee ist weiss" is within the object language, and snow is white is within the metalanguage, such that if and only if snow is white then the proposition "snow is white" is true.
Quoting Richard B
I agree. When you see a "red" object your private subjective experience may be of the colour blue. But it is impossible for anyone other than yourself to know. But the fact that it is impossible to communicate to another person your private subjective experience, does not mean that you haven't had a private subjective experience.
Quoting Richard B
If you had no "private meaning", if you never had any private subjective experiences, if you never felt pain, saw a colour, smelt a rose, tasted coffee or heard laughter, then one could say that this would be a vacuous life.
True. On the one hand, how can I have the private sense of things by description, such as democracy, the 1969 Moon landing, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Machu Picchu, wavelengths, atoms, Julius Caesar, etc. Such description can only be through language, and language requires being part of a society that uses language.
But on the other hand, I can have the private sense of things by acquaintance, such as feeling pain, smelling a rose, tasting coffee, hearing laughter and seeing a colour. Such acquaintance is independent of language, and doesn't require being part of a social group.
How is it possible to understand a wavelength when I only know it through description as "the distance between successive crests of a wave, especially points in a sound wave or electromagnetic wave."
Any whole that is only known by description can only become understandable if the parts are known by acquaintance.
First, as I already know by acquaintance the following parts - the distance between two things, the crest of a wave, a point and a sound - I can remove them from the description, leaving the unknown terms successive, especially and electromagnetic.
Successive is defined as following one another. Especially is defined as singling out one thing over all others. Electromagnetic is defined as relating electric currents and magnetic fields.
Second, as I already know by acquaintance the following parts - one thing following another, one thing taking prominence over another thing, the pain from touching a cattle electric fence and the movement of a compass needle in a magnetic field - I can remove them from the description.
In such as fashion, a whole only known by description may be reduced to component parts known by acquaintance. This allows me the private sense of wavelength, independent of language, and independent of any language-using society.
I agree that Mary can talk about the concept of colour, ie "colour is the visual perception based on the electromagnetic spectrum. Though colour is not an inherent property of matter, colour perception is related to an object's light absorption, reflection, emission spectra and interference"
But can Mary talk about what it feels like to perceive colour ?
I think this idea is confused based on the very idea on how we learn the language of color and language is general. Please consider this example:
For simplicity sake let us assume we are in a world with just two colors, red and blue. In my tribe, we learned when we see a red object we call it “red” and when we see a blue object, we call it “blue”. One day we travel to an island and we meet another tribe that surprisingly has a very similar language like ours with the exception that when they see a red object they call it “blue” and when they see a blue object they call it “red”. What are we to think in this situation? That they actually see a blue object where we see a red object, or that they simply call a red object “blue” in their language? We can easily ask for the red object by saying “Can you fetch me that blue object” in which they bring me the red object. Would it not be more reasonable to believe our words for “blue” and “red” are “inverted” not how we experience those objects? If this is so, how is this any different when someone says to me, I see that red object but I really see it as “blue.” It is not that we will never know what one actually experiences, but that we are going beyond what the language of color can express.
This is where I disagree with Wittgenstein. I agree that meaning doesn't reside as a thing in the mind/brain, but I disagree that it's a "something about which nothing can be said." At the very least I can say they are private experiences/sensations, and we often do describe such sensations accurately. Moreover, when talking about, for e.g., the taste of wine, some people who are in the business of describing such tastes, can do it in a way that others can clearly understand. They understand because they too are able to recognize the descriptions.
In the world are two objects. One has been named "red" and the other has been named "blue". No-one knows the true colours of these two objects. However, let them be green and orange for the sake of argument.
For Tribe A to see a red object does not mean that the object they are seeing is red, it just means that they see the colour red when looking at the object named "red",
Similarly, for Tribe A to see a blue object does not mean that the object they are seeing is blue, it just means that they see the colour blue when looking at the object named "blue".
Similarly for Tribe B.
As you say, these two Tribes can still carry on a sensible conversation, because the objects have been named, regardless of any private subjective experiences. This is Wittgenstein's "Beetle in the Box".
Overall I agree with your post, but what can true color even mean here ?
What could “accurately” mean in such a case of private experiences/sensations. One, no one, in principle, can verify the truth of such an assertion, so why even call it is an assertion. Two, we learn what “accuracy” means by learning the techniques of determining the accuracy of whatever is under examination. Thus, no one can teach another how to determine the accuracy of a private experience/sensation. Lastly, Wittgenstein does not deny one have these experiences but only what can be said, which is not much at all. Just like if someone is in a completely dark room and someone ask “what do you see?” And one replies, “It is dark.”
What accurately means depends on context. So if we give people the same color patches and they describe them using the same words I use, then what more is needed to say they've described the colors accurately, and that they are seeing what I see? For all practical purposed their descriptions are accurate. There's no good reason to think they are seeing different colors. It's a problem without a difference.
As Wittgenstein pointed out in PI 258, there is a problem talking about the accuracy of private sensations, he says towards the end, “But in the present case I have no criterion of correctness. One would like to say: whatever is going to seem right to me is right. And that only means that here we can’t talk about ‘right’.
What goes wrong with some much talk of private sensations is it borrows so much from the language of the public shared reality that words begin to loose their sense, like “right” “accurate”, “judgment”, “remember”, “something” etc… How much do you cut off a tree where it is no longer a tree but a stump?
The quote from PI 258 is about the so-called private language argument. I have no problem with the PLA. I think it's clear that rule-following in a private language degenerates into "what seems right is right." However, this is much different from what I was referring to above. My point wasn't about a private language, it was about the public use of words and what we mean by those words (generally speaking). I was addressing the public use of color words, and what it would mean to accurately describe certain colors. The point was that we can and do generally describe colors accurately, so that what I mean by the color blue is generally what we all mean by the color blue. It's not as though we're all confused about what we're seeing or experiencing, unless, for e.g., we talking about very subtle shading or nuanced color differences which may take some training to accurately describe.
Quoting Richard B
Yes, these words do borrow (borrow is not a good word for what I'm talking about - words get their meanings from public discourse period - they don't borrow from the public) from public language because if they didn't it would degenerate into purely subjective meanings. Hence, the PLA. I disagree that Wittgenstein would agree that words, such as, right, accurate, judgment, etc lose their sense, if that's what you're indeed saying. It's important when using words like accurate to spell out what qualifies as accurate. In one case of measuring, for e.g., we might say that a measurement within a certain range is accurate, but in another case it may not be. So again how we use words in one language-game might not work in another, but that doesn't mean that the words lose their sense. It just means that sense is dependent upon the language-game you're using at the moment. These language-games are dependent on a wide range of public discourse.
I'm not saying this is the final word by any means, but we can't ignore poetry and music.
The only way of expressing emotion in the form of art is by finding an "objective correlative"; in other words, a set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion; such that when the external facts, which must terminate in sensory experience, are given, the emotion is immediately evoked.
Notice that it's trivially true that feeling just is not concept. A sentence is not really a painting. We include feelings in our 'inferential ontology' all the time. We can be more or less confident that someone 'gets it.' But our belief about states of affairs of medium size dry goods is also fallible.
Agreed, feelings are not concepts, but if you want to talk about feelings to your fellow human being there is a lot of set up that needs to take place. We simply do not take a literal picture of what is going on inside and give it to another person and say “see this is how I feel.” We need words associated with particular circumstances; we need a common language to understand those circumstances; we need our fellow human being to react similarly to those circumstances, or at least imagine how they would react, etc… with any luck we get understanding and empathy.
Respectfully, that sounds like you repeating what I said back to me.
Quoting Richard B
I said:
Quoting plaque flag
I also quoted Eliot and said:
Quoting plaque flag
Then you inform me that:
Quoting Richard B
Where does colour exist
I agree. It comes down to a matter of opinion.
The Direct Realist would say that as we directly see the world around us, things in the world, such as colours, are perceived immediately rather than inferred on the basis of perceptual evidence.
The Indirect Realist would say that our conscious experience is not directly of the world itself, but is an internal representation of an external world. This external world is real and is the cause of our sensations, but as an effect does not need to be the same as the cause, what we sense is an effect that does not of necessity need to be of the same kind as its cause in the world.
The Direct Realist would therefore say that if we see a red object, then in the world there exists also a red object. The Indirect Realist would say that if we see a red object, all we can say is that our sensation has been caused by something in the world. But as an effect is not of necessity the same as its cause, then the cause in the world must remain unknown. In Kant's terms, a thing in itself.
As an Indirect Realist, I cannot know that colours don't exist in the world but my belief is that they don't.
Wittgenstein's Beetle in the Box supports Indirect Realism
Wittgenstein's support for the Beetle in the Box analogy indicatives his support for Indirect rather than Direct Realism.
Wittgenstein in PI 293 wrote about an unknown beetle:
Suppose everyone had a box with something in it: we call it a "beetle". No one can look into anyone else's box, and everyone says he knows what a beetle is only by looking at his beetle.
If Direct Realism was correct, given a beetle in the external world, I would directly perceive this beetle. Other people would also directly perceive the same beetle. As everyone looking at the beetle would have the same intentional content, everyone would know everyone else's intentional content. Everyone would know that their private perception was the same as everyone else's, contradicting Wittgenstein's private language argument, and contradicting PI para 272 where he wrote that nobody knows another person's sensations:
The essential thing about private experience is really not that each person possesses his own exemplar, but that nobody knows whether other people also have this or something else. The assumption would thus be possible—though unverifiable—that one section of mankind had one sensation of red and another section another.
Wittgenstein's Beetle in the Box is an argument against Direct Realism.
To be clear, the "something" in question at §304 is not a meaning or anything linguistic, but a private sensation; a feeling. However, I assume this is what you meant.
Quoting Sam26
I believe Wittgenstein would say that we do not describe our sensations, but express them. For example:
Quoting Sam26
If I ask you to fetch me a red object, I will know if you have succeeded in doing so but not because I know how red looks to everyone else. (I cannot even sensibly say that I know how red looks to myself - see §246). What matters is that I can successfully pick out the colour red. Recognising how red looks (to me) will help me to do that, but my personal sensation when seeing a red object does not enter into the meaning of the word. What "red" means is not a description of my personal sensation or how it looks to me in particular. It doesn't matter how the colour looks to me, or whether I truly see red accurately (or whether I see the "real" red). It's almost as if learning to use the word "red" is like putting on a pair of magic glasses that makes you see the same colour as everyone else. It doesn't matter how it looks to me when I'm not wearing my magic glasses, it only matters that how one uses the word "red" corresponds to how other people use the word "red". How it looks to me drops out of consideration as irrelevant. I could be colour-blind or blind and still be able to respond appropriately to a request to fetch a red object. The thing in [one's] box doesn't belong to the language-game at all. All that matters are one's actions/behaviour in response to the word "red".
Similarly, when one describes the tastes of wine, one doesn't describe their private taste sensation, but has learned to use a public language. To say that some food "tastes like chicken", or that a wine tastes "smoky" or "like a blue crayon" (or whatever) is only ever partaking in the public language that magically filters out everyone's individual private sensations. Again, recognising the private sensation will help one to use the language appropriately, but language does not describe one person's private sensation. Or you could say that it does, but in a way which filters it (out) to be the same as everyone else's private sensation.
You use the word "red" appropriately when you see this colour and I use the word "red" appropriately when I see this colour. But, that this colour might appear differently to each of us makes no difference to knowing how to use the word appropriately.
Perhaps my view departs from Wittgenstein's here, too. I'm unsure.
I think Wittgenstein would say that recognizing a private sensation does not assist in using a word appropriately. Think of PI 265, the train time-table example. He might say using language correctly shows we recognize the private sensation (or maybe ….we experience the private sensation).
The Beetle in the Box is not to put forward a philosophical theory or to show support for indirect realism theory but to show that the model of “object and designation” is irrelevant to the meaning of the terms expressed in the language game of pain.
In fact he does not even support indirect realism, consider PI 304, “The conclusion was only that nothing would serve just as well as a something about which nothing could be said.”
An indirect realist would not say this. They would say that there are “somethings” and these somethings are private sensations and we have much to say.
They lose their sense in terms of talking about private sensations like they are public objects. For example, “I correctly recognize my past sensation is the same one as my current sensation” vs “I correctly recognize the person in the picture is my neighbor.”
Wittgenstein is not saying that there is a "nothing". He is saying that there is a "something", but within the language game, this "something" drops out of consideration.
As regards "object and designation", the object is the intentional content, the private subjective feeling, such as pain and the designation is the public name used in a language game, such as the word "pain"
Wittgenstein in PI 304 writes that the sensation of pain is a definite "something" and attacks those who say that the sensation of pain is a "nothing". He writes that it is only within the context of a language game that this "something", this pain, drops out of consideration.
"But you will surely admit that there is a difference between pain-behaviour accompanied by pain and pain-behaviour without any pain?"—Admit it? What greater difference could there be?—"And yet you again and again reach the conclusion that the sensation itself is a nothing"—Not at all. It is not a something., but not a nothing either!"
Wittgenstein PI 304 continues that within the language game, as this "something", the object of pain, drops out of consideration, then "nothing" would serve just as well. This is obviously nonsense, because if there was "nothing" in the first place, then there wouldn't be anything to drop out of consideration. If there was "nothing" in the mind, there would be no language. In fact, there would be no humans as we know them.
"The conclusion was only that a nothing would serve just as well as a something about which nothing could be said. We have only rejected the grammar which tries to force itself on us here."
Wittgenstein continues in PI 304 that language doesn't function by directly linking object with designation, by directly linking the private sensation of pain with the public name of "pain", which happens to be the Direct Realist's position.
"The paradox disappears only if we make a radical break with the idea that language always functions in one way, always serves the same purpose: to convey thoughts—which may be about houses, pains, good and evil, or anything else you please."
Wittgenstein writes in PI 293 that language functions by publicly naming things in the world, and it may well be the case that everyone has a different private subjective feeling, a different "beetle" in their box.
"If I say of myself that it is only from my own case that I know what the word "pain" means—must I not say the same of other people too? And how can I generalize the one case so irresponsibly? Now someone tells me that he knows what pain is only from his own case!——Suppose everyone had a box with something in it: we call it a "beetle". No one can look into anyone else's box, and everyone says he knows what a beetle is only by looking at his beetle.—Here it would be quite possible for everyone to have something different in his box."
I agree that Wittgenstein studiously avoids taking any philosophical position, however, his Beetle in the Box analogy is a good argument against Direct Realism and for Indirect Realism.
As I read through these paragraphs, I find that I'm not actually disagreeing with Witt, so my wording is not as accurate as it should be.
In my dreams, which take place in the dark, I can have the sensation of colour.
Whether in a dream or waking, if there is nothing to sense then there cannot be a sensation, ie, a sensation cannot be of nothing.
As a sensation cannot be of nothing, the sensation cannot be independent of what is being sensed, ie, the sensation is what is being sensed.
Therefore, if what is being sensed is colour, as the sensation is what is being sensed, then the sensation itself is colour.
Exactly. But if I were to ask you what colour the sensation of colour was, you might wonder what I meant.
You might want to say that the sensation of each colour is the colour of the sensation it is, or that the colour of the sensation is different from the colour it is a sensation of. Whichever you said, I would be wondering what you could possibly mean.
A large object is large. A circular object is circular. A green sensation is green.
As being circular is not independent of a circular object, being green is not independent of a green sensation.
Therefore, the sensation of green is green.
Then what Is anyone supposed to understand by this, and the accompanying diagram?
Quoting RussellA
It is normal to say "I have the sensation of green", as it is normal to say "I have a book"
But "I have a book" means that "I" and the "book" are independent of each other, in that the "book" exists independently of "me".
Grammatically, as "I" and the "book" are independent of each other, then it would follow that "I" and "the sensation of green" are independent of each other.
Yet this cannot be the case, as "I" am no more than the set of my sensations. My sensations are what comprise "me".
It would follow that it would be more correct to say that "I am the sensation of green".
This avoids the infinite regression problem which would happen if "I" am separate from my sensations, yet my sensations exist within "me".
Well speak for yourself; I am a good deal more than the set of my sensations.
But do you see the difficulty of your diagram, that recreates colours 'in the mind'; it would require someone to be looking at the mind, to see what colour things were in there. That is the recursion we really need to avoid. And the way to do it is to leave colours where they are, in leaves and flowers and stuff, and let all the 'mind-stuff' including sensations be colourless and featureless electrochemical shenanigans, or moving spirit, or some such.
The sensation of green is a different thing to the sensation of big, so the expressions "the sensation of green is green" and "the sensation of big is big" cannot be equated. We directly sense the colour "green", but we don't directly sense the adjective "big". Whereas "green " is a direct sensation, "big" is not a direct sensation.
In the mind are sensations. The question is, how does the mind relate to its sensations. Either the mind is separate to its sensations, such that "I have sensations" or the mind is its sensations, such that "I am my sensations".
You say "I prefer to say that sensations are not the kind of thing that has colour.", then how do you explain the relationship between the mind and its sensations.
Quoting unenlightened
It may well be that you are a Substance Dualist, having the belief that the mind and body are fundamentally distinct kinds of substances. If so, what kind of substance do you think the mind is, and how does it causally affect the body, a different substance altogether.
Quoting unenlightened
Yes, that someone is the person having the mind in the first place.
Quoting unenlightened
If a sensation is colourless, then how do we know that objects in the world, such as leaves and flowers, have colours at all.
Yes, you're probably right.
:up:
I use my eyes, personally. The runner beans I can see through the window here are green with orange-red flowers. The runner beans are in the garden. What I cannot see, because my eyes do not point the right way, is into my mind. So I confess I do not know how my mind distinguishes things. I distinguish colours using my eyes, though; I'm fairly sure of that.
I'm also pretty sure I do not look at my sensations to see what colour they are, because I would need special eyes in my my mind that I do not think I have. And even supposing I did, they would surely require eyes in the mind's eye to examine the sensations produced, and those eyes would also need eyes to look at their sensations etc, ad infinitum.
In perceiving runner beans, the Direct Realist would say that what we see exists in the world, where things in the world are perceived immediately or directly rather than inferred on the basis of perceptual evidence. The Indirect Realist would say that our conscious experience is not of the real world itself but of an internal representation, where our ideas of the world are interpretations of sensory input derived from a real external world.
Science tells us that a wavelength of 550nm travels from the runner beans to our eyes, where an electromagnetic wave is an oscillation of electric and magnetic fields and its wavelength is the distance between two adjacent crests.
How can a wavelength of 550nm have an intrinsic colour, and if wavelengths have an intrinsic colour, what would be the intrinsic colour of a radio wave having a wavelength of 3 metres ?
Quoting unenlightened
I agree, which is my argument that it is more the case that "I am sensations" rather than "I have sensations".
From Wikipedia Homunculus Argument
If there is a homunculus looking at sensations, these sensations must be in the homuncules' head. But how does the homunculus see sensations inside its own head. It can only be if there is a second homunculus within the first homuncules head looking at the sensations within the first homuncules head. But then we have the same problem, how does the second homuncules see sensations inside its own head.
A dualist might argue that the homunculus inside the brain is an immaterial one, such as the Cartesian soul. A non-dualist might argue that a life form is indivisible from its environment, such that the mind is not separate from its sensations, but rather the mind is the set of its sensations.
A dualist would need to explain how a mind separate to the body can affect the body.
Yes scientists have explained in some detail how we see colour. And then philosophers persist in suggesting that something else has colour than the things we see. First the mind, and now wavelengths.
If ever I see a wavelength, I will be sure to let folks know what colour it is. In the meantime, I will stick with the runner beans that are green, and maintain that they and their greenness are in the garden and not in my eyes which are greyish blue, nor in my mind which is quite clear. And if I imagine runner beans in the winter time, and someone asks where the green is in my dreams and imagination, I will tell them "in the summer, in the garden, of course" because I have a realistic imagination.
The observer sees green light (ignoring for the sake of argument that this wavelength after entering the eye becomes an electrical signal that travels up the optic nerve to the brain).
This green light has been caused by something in the world. The light left the object before being seen by the observer.
The observer directly sees the green light as it enters the eye, and not the green light as it was emitted from the object, as the light emitted from the object was emitted at a time prior to entering the eye. An observer cannot directly see an event that happened in the past, only an event in the present.
As many causes of green light are possible, and as the observer has no direct knowledge of the cause of the green light, the observer's belief that the cause were runner beans can only be indirectly inferred from the other senses, such as touch, smell and taste.
We understand reality by using multiple measurements to abstract out the same pattern. This is known as Construct Validation in psychology. This raises the question as to how we know when a concept is real, how do we know the nature of reality. To establish something as real, we need a set of qualitatively different measurements which converge, which is what the senses do. The senses provide five qualitatively distinct reports, and if they converge one presumes that this constitutes reality. This convergence of the senses is how we define reality.
That the cause of the green light were runner beans cannot be directly known by sight alone. All that is possible is a justified belief from the rational combination of different senses that the cause of one's seeing green light were green runner beans.
The problem is that the light emitted from the object happened at a time before entering the eye, and the philosophical question for the Direct Realist is how is it possible for an observer to directly see a past event?
Quoting RussellA
Maybe stop trying to teach me schoolboy optics, and think about the philosophy, and particularly the language with which you are confusing yourself. No one sees light, it is not visible. Rather, when light enters the eye, one sees the source of the light. There is no such thing as green light because light is not visible; there are green sources of light and green reflectors of light. Just as there is no green in the mind, there is no green in the light, One speaks of a green light when one sees a green source, and out of that misunderstanding a whole metaphysics is developed. And Wittgenstein has carefully undone that knot for you, and you insist on retying it.
Consider for a moment, that you have sent me an image of seeing in order to show me that I cannot see what you have just put in front of me. Rather ambitious, I'd say.
The general opinion is that humans can see light, for example:
Wikipedia: "Light or visible light is electromagnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye."
National Geographic Society: "Visible light waves are the only wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum that humans can see"
BBC: "Everything we can see is because of how our eyes detect the light around us."
NASA: "All electromagnetic radiation is light, but we can only see a small portion of this radiation—the portion we call visible light."
This one is correct. Our eyes detect 'visible' light. And that's why we call it "visible light" Seeing IS the detection of light by the eyes, but the light that enters the eyes is not seen but absorbed so that it is no more, in the process of seeing.
What you have produced above is not "the general opinion" but "the general way of talking". which is generally understood by anyone but a philosopher, who cannot see for looking.
We use the same word for the radiation and its source; perhaps that observation might help folk see the light?
Yes, that is the problem. If a wavelength of 550nm enters the eye originating from an object in the world, in common language we say "I see a green object".
As you said yourself "There is no such thing as green light because light is not visible; there are green sources of light and green reflectors of light."
This is the problem with Direct Realism, which believes that the world we see around us is the real world itself, where things in the world are perceived immediately or directly rather than inferred on the basis of perceptual evidence.
This is why I wrote "The problem is that the light emitted from the object happened at a time before entering the eye, and the philosophical question for the Direct Realist is how is it possible for an observer to directly see a past event?"
Another problem for the Direct Realist is, if it is true that the object has an the intrinsic colour of green, how does the information that the object is green get to the observer, if the means of getting the information to the observer, the wavelength of 550nm, carries no information about colour.
I passed it by, because you have just explained perfectly precisely how an observer sees a past event, which any astronomer can confirm as perfectly normal and universal..
Quoting RussellA
Again, the explanation creates the mystery. The eye detects light and distinguishes the wavelength and this is how the information is 'conveyed'. The "intrinsic colour of green" is nothing other than the propensity to preferentially reflect radiation of wavelength 550nm and that is the property that the eye is configured to remotely detect. It's called "seeing green stuff".
Exactly, the fact that the event is in the past means that the the observer cannot see the event directly, only indirectly, which is the position of Indirect Realism. Another argument against Direct Realism.
Quoting unenlightened
Exactly, "beauty is in the eye of the beholder". The colour green exists in the mind, not the world, which is the position of Indirect Realism. Yet another argument against Direct Realism.
There's none so blind as them that will not see.
Not so. The colour green is the propensity of an object to preferentially reflect light of wavelength 550nm approx.
Yes, some objects in the world have the propensity to preferentially reflect light of wavelength 550nm.
Humans have defined the wavelength of 550nm as green. Then where does green exist? Although a wavelength of 550nm can exist in the world, green can only exist as part of a human definition, and human definitions can only exist in the mind, not the world.
The wavelength of 550nm could equally well have been defined as violet. There is nothing in the world outside the mind that is able to determine whether a wavelength of 550nm is green or violet. Only in the human mind can it be determined that a wavelength of 550nm is green and not violet.
As the colour of the wavelength 550nm can only be determined by the mind, the colour green can only exist in the mind.
Green things.
We have devices that detect colors on a variety objects that will agree with human judgement. These devices are not detecting color in the minds of humans but on objects. Additionally, if you use the device on the human brain you will be getting the color of the brain not what the brain is sensing.
This simply shows this view colors only existing in the mind is confused and unfruitful.
If the argument is that because we see green things then in the world exist green things,
then it would also follow that if we see a stick bent in water then in the world exist sticks bent in water.
We have devices that can detect the wavelength of 550nm emitted by a variety of objects. The device doesn't know the name of the wavelength of 550nm prior to it being named green by a human.
Quoting Richard B
Similarly, a device such as a MRI scanner can be used on the human brain. The MRI scanner doesn't know the colours on its screen prior to their being named by a human. Such devices are only capable of recording the external appearance of the physical brain. They are not capable of recording human thoughts and feelings internal to the physical brain.
1. Scientists are not naming the color green "550 nm." Scientists are characterizing the color green with the property of 550 nm based on the latest scientific theories of light. This can only be done if there is general agreement by humans on what they judge to be green. This is done be utilizing standard samples that we all would agree are called "green."
2. The device will be calibrated to detect particular wavelengths of light from a standard object that human beings collectively judge to be green. This shows the device is working as intended. The device is not calibrated by the color that exists in someone's mind. We need the device to detect the color of an object that is independent of a human but will detect and report the color as humans do.
3. If I want to determine a particular color of a swatch, I may send it out to a company who has sensitive device that can provide a very nuance color determination. So I put it in an envelop and mail it in and in a few days get a report on its color. I am not sending a color that exists in my mind in the mail.
4. The human brain is like the device that detects color. It has evolved to sense and discriminate different wavelengths of colors. This is demonstrated by humans collectively judging and naming colors of particular objects. If a human being has a problem with judging color like the community, scientists may take an interest to understand what is happening in the brain. Maybe with this knowledge they may even attempt to help the human harmonize more.
5. If colors exist in the mind, why did scientist study light and color that is independent of the human? Because it exist independent of them. What scientists may want to study is how the brain reacts to color and light. What they do not study is what color the human is "actually' experiencing. And the reason for this is not technological limitations, but what is being expressed in language is incoherent.
What I want to show with this discussion is this philosophical theory that "color exists only in the mind" has no relevance to how humans use color language in the everyday life and in the pursuit of science. But as a story of entertaining fiction, I do get a good laugh.
I can take a swatch to my local hardware shop and they will mix me a can of paint to match my sample in about 10 minutes. This is because they are [s]mind-readers[/s] swatch-readers.
How should "colour" be defined
The Merriam Webster dictionary defines colour as a phenomenon of light (such as red, brown, pink, or grey) or visual perception that enables one to differentiate otherwise identical objects. However this is ambiguous, and does not address the problem as to exactly how does colour enable one to distinguish between otherwise identical objects.
It depends how you are defining the word colour. If you are defining colour as a name, such as "green", as names have been created in the human mind, names cannot exist independently of any human. But if you are defining colour as a wavelength, such that the colour green is the wavelength 495 to 570nm, then in this sense colours can exist independently of any human.
As defining colour as a wavelength introduces the confusion of over-determination, whereby two very different concepts are given the same name, the definition of colour should be limited to that of a name. In this case, colours can only exist in the mind.
Quoting Richard B
I agree that the colour green has not been named 550nm, but rather the wavelength of 550nm has been named green.
A group of humans look at several objects and come to a communal agreement that there is a certain similarity in the objects emitting wavelength of 495 to 570nm, there is a certain similarity in the objects emitting wavelength of 570 to 590nm, and the objects emitting wavelengths of 495 to 570nm are somehow different to the objects emitting wavelengths of 570 to 590nm. In the English speaking world it is agreed that the objects emitting wavelengths of 495 to 570nm are named "green" and the objects emitting wavelengths of 570 to 590nm are named "yellow". In France, they would be named "verte" and "jaune".
Quoting Richard B
The device detects the wavelength emitted from an object that is independent of a human, but no device can detect the colour of an object independent of a human.
The community has agreed that objects emitting wavelengths of 495 to 570nm are named "green" and objects emitting wavelengths of 570 to 590nm are named "yellow". These humans can then make a device that distinguishes the wavelengths emitted by different objects. The human designer of the device then programs into the device that if the device records a wavelength of 495 to 570nm, then the device gives the output "green".
Quoting Richard B
I agree, you are sending a physical object through the mail that emits a particular wavelength, not a colour that exists in your mind.
Quoting Richard B
The human brain is different to a device. The human brain directly perceives colour and only indirectly knows about wavelength. The device directly detects a wavelength but only indirectly gives this wavelength the name of a colour.
I agree that the human brain has evolved to sense and discriminate different colours. However, if it weren't for science the human would be unaware that they only perceive colour because information has travelled from the object to the eye in the form of a wavelength. Humans know colour directly, and only know about wavelength indirectly.
On the other hand, a human-made device is only able to discriminate between different wavelengths. These wavelengths can then be named by a human programmer in order to give the output "green" when input the wavelength 550nm. A device can directly detect an input wavelength but only has indirect information about its colour.
Quoting Richard B
Colour can refer to two different things. In sense one, it can refer to the private subjective feeling within the mind that cannot be described, as explained by Wittgenstein's Beetle in the Box analogy. In sense two, it can refer to the public name "green", "yellow" etc as used in the language game, the physical object, the physical name "green" that you see on the screen in front of you.
In sense one, colour only exists in the mind and not the world. In sense two, wavelengths only exist in the world and not the mind. Sense one and two are linked because the reason that we perceive colour in our mind is due to the fact that wavelengths exist in the world.
Scientists can measure physical things that exist in the world, such as wavelengths and language expressed either verbally or in writing. After all, the word "green" you see on your screen is a physical object that exists in the world. Scientists can measure pain-behaviour, which are physical events in the world, but not the pain itself that caused the pain-behaviour.
Wittgenstein writes in PI 244
A child has hurt himself and he cries; and then adults talk to him and teach him exclamations and, later, sentences. They teach the child new pain-behaviour. "So you are saying that the word 'pain' really means crying?"— On the contrary: the verbal expression of pain replaces crying and does not describe it.
Quoting Richard B
If philosophy was meant to be fun, it would be being promoted at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. :smile:
Well, we always have Monty Python if an ounce of levity is needed.
Even Monty Python get Wittgenstein sent off from playing the game.
A group of humans look at several objects and come to a communal agreement that there is a certain similarity in the objects emitting wavelengths of 495 to 570nm, there is a certain similarity in the objects emitting wavelengths of 570 to 590nm, and the objects emitting wavelengths of 495 to 570nm are somehow different to the objects emitting wavelengths of 570 to 590nm. In the English speaking world it is agreed that the objects emitting wavelengths of 495 to 570nm are named "green" and the objects emitting wavelengths of 570 to 590nm are named "yellow". In France, they would be named "verte" and "jaune".
However, if it weren't for science, the human would be unaware that they only perceive colour because information has travelled from the object to the eye in the form of a wavelength.
Where does colour exist, in the mind or in the world. Do we perceive an object as green because the object is green or is this an illusion.
The colour green includes the wavelengths 495 to 570nm. The wavelengths 570 to 590nm are not green.
But what has science discovered in the world outside the mind that relates the wavelength 500nm to 550nm but not to 580nm.
We know that in the mind the wavelength 500nm is related to 550nm but not to 580nm because the mind can distinguish green from yellow.
If green exists in the world independent of the mind, then what exactly has science discovered in such a world that relates 500nm to 550nm but not to 580nm ?
1. The color of an object is determined by which wavelengths of light it reflects. For example, plants appear green because they contain the pigment chlorophyll. Chlorophyll absorbs all other wavelengths of light. Green is reflected so it is green light that hits our eyes. Science discovers that the green light has a wavelength of 550nm and not 580nm, and yellow light has a wavelength of 580 nm and 550 nm.
2. If you have no problems with a device that detects color by utilizing scientific theories of light and not positing the device having private color sensations, why not humans that have evolved biological apparatuses to do the same without private color sensations?
3. To get poetic, you seem to picture the color experience as if you are in a room with no doors or windows but just a TV set with a wire coming from the wall that you presume is sending signals from an outer-world that you can’t be so sure if it accurately reflects reality. I, on the other hand, have an open window with a clear view. If the is a metaphysical dispute, I like to be optimistic and believe we are seeing the same thing. And maybe that is the more reasonable position because we have similar biologies, judge color the same , use the same words, and inhabit the same world.
This sentence may be used to illustrate Wittgenstein's importance to language and philosophy.
The link between linguistic grammatical form and philosophical substantive content
Many philosophers believe that the first task is finding a theory of meaning in language. Given such a theory, they can then turn to the problems of philosophy. However, for Wittgenstein, whose first interest is in philosophy, it is this interest in philosophy that makes him then interested in language, but concludes that there is no theory of meaning in language that will enable the solving of philosophical problems. It is incorrect to say that Wittgenstein is an ordinary language philosopher in the sense that JL Austin is.
Wittgenstein urges throughout his later work that mistaking a grammatical claim for a philosophical one is a common source of philosophical confusion, Wittgenstein says that the philosophical problems that concern him are not empirical problems, but are problems solved by looking into and recognizing the workings of our language.
Wittgenstein often insists that he is not presenting a philosophical argument. In PI 109 he writes "We must do away with all explanation and description alone must take its place", whereby such descriptions get that purpose from philosophical problems.
For Wittgenstein, a standing source of philosophical confusion is the tendency to transpose a remark concerning the grammar of an expression into a substantive claim about the things referred to in the expression. For example, from PI 246 is the sentence “Only I can know that I am really in pain; another person can only surmise it”. This is clearly false, as that on many occasions we can know full well that someone else is in pain, there is no surmising about it. The grammatical difference between the first person "I have a pain" and the third person "he has a pain" wrongly becomes a substantive philosophical problem
For Wittgenstein the first step is to acknowledge the confusion between statements of grammatical fact and the use of them in the search for substantive philosophical meaning.
Quoting Richard B
I agree. But to avoid any ambiguity, does the sentence mean i) what appears green to us science has discovered has a wavelength of 550nm or ii) science has discovered that a wavelength of 550nm is green independent of any observer ?
Quoting Richard B
By the sentence "a device that detects colour", do you mean i) a device that is able to directly detect the colour green independent of any observer or ii) a device that is able to detect the wavelength 550nm, and has been programmed by a human that a wavelength of 550nm is named green ?
Quoting Richard B
I am sure we do. I agree that because humans have similar biologies we judge colour the same, and I am sure that your subjective green is the same as my subjective green. I believe this, but I don't know it, as I cannot see into another person's mind
However, even though I believe that we see the same thing, in that we both see the same green plant, our seeing the same thing can be explained by both Direct Realism, looking through a clear window, and Indirect Realism, looking through a TV screen.
It then comes down to arguments for and against Indirect and Direct Realism.
What it means is human beings collectively will call the green standard sample "green", and current scientific technology will measure the light reflected off such a standard sample as 550 nm.
Quoting RussellA
What it means is a device that can detect light with a wavelength of 550 nm light, and humans collectively has established that light of such a wavelength is called "green", and the device can be programmed to report out the name of the color.
Quoting RussellA
I think this is where Wittgenstein would say this philosophical discussion is "going off the rails" so to speak. The language game is learned in a community from color language users that can judge color samples the same, and use the color names in the same way. This is how they know they see the same color of an object. This is all we have and it is all that matters when discussing color.
Quoting RussellA
I would say Wittgenstein is not supporting either Indirect or Direct Realism since both are philosophical theories in which language goes on a holiday.
Please make it clear when you are quoting from a book.
Point taken. I will be more careful in the future. I'm pleased that someone is actually reading my posts.
Actually though…
Quoting RussellA
I hope this doesn’t mean you’re just going to plagiarize more skilfully. :wink:
The Indirect Realist would argue that what we perceive through our senses is only a representation of what exists in the world, in that even though we perceive a green object, the object in the world does not of necessity have a colour. Therefore, the Indirect Realist would say: What it means is a device that can detect light with a wavelength of 550 nm light, and humans collectively has established that light of such a wavelength is called "green", and the device can be programmed to report out the name of the colour.
The Direct Realist would argue that what we perceive through our senses is not a representation of what exists in the world, but gives us direct knowledge of what exists in the world, in that if we perceive a green object then a green object exists in the world. Therefore the Direct Realist would say: What it means is a device that can detect light with a wavelength of 550 nm light, and humans collectively has established that light of such a wavelength is "green", and the device can be programmed to report out the name of the colour.
The difference between the Indirect and Direct Realist is that for the Indirect Realist the object in the world is named green but for the Direct Realist the object in the world is green.
The principle can be extended. For an Indirect Realist, an object in the world can be named "apple", "table", "chair", etc, whereas for the Direct Realist, an object in the world is an "apple", ""table", "chair" , etc
Therefore, for an Indirect Realist, the name of an object is a label for the object and does not describe the object in the world, whereas for a Direct Realist, the name of an object describes the object in the world.
In today's terms, Wittgenstein's approach in PI is that of an Indirect Realist rather than a Direct Realist, whereby a name is a label for an object in the world than rather than a description of it.
Wittgenstein in PI 26 wrote that naming is like attaching a label to a thing
One thinks that learning language consists in giving names to objects. Viz, to human beings, to shapes, to colours, to pains, to moods, to numbers, etc. . To repeat—naming is something like attaching a label to a thing.
He also indicated in PI 244 that a name is in a sense an object in its own right and may replace another object but does not describe it
On the contrary: the verbal expression of pain replaces crying and does not describe it.
Quoting Richard B
Yes, Wittgenstein doesn't write in support of either. Only today can we take his writings as being in support for one or the other.
As he wrote in 1917 "And this is how it is: if only you do not try to utter what is unutterable then nothing gets lost. But the unutterable will be unutterably contained in what has been uttered!”
Plagiarising is serious.
For example, www.scribbr.com writes:
[i]The consequences of plagiarism vary depending on the type of plagiarism and the context in which it occurs. For example, submitting a whole paper by someone else will have the most severe consequences, while accidental citation errors are considered less serious.
If you’re a student, then you might fail the course, be suspended or expelled, or be obligated to attend a workshop on plagiarism. It depends on whether it’s your first offence or you’ve done it before.
As an academic or professional, plagiarizing seriously damages your reputation. You might also lose your research funding or your job, and you could even face legal consequences for copyright infringement.[/i]
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines plagiarising as: to steal and pass off (the ideas or words of another) as one's own : use (another's production) without crediting the source.
I may use established sources to back up my ideas, to clarify my own ideas, to give me ideas or provide me with sentences I think especially well written, but that is not the same as copying the ideas of established sources. For example, for many years I have held the belief that names are labels not descriptions, and used Wittgenstein's quote in PI 26, where he says - One thinks that learning language consists in giving names to objects. Viz, to human beings, to shapes, to colours, to pains, to moods, to numbers, etc. . To repeat—naming is something like attaching a label to a thing. - to support my belief, not as a replacement for it.
I never plagiarise. All the ideas in my posts are my own, even if they are my ideas about other people's ideas, and am more than willing to justify any post I have ever written. :wink:
:100: I do just the same.
Within the text of yours that I quoted—text that is presented as yours and is at least partly or mostly yours—you did embed sentences and fragments of sentences that you copied from a book. That’s plagiarism. But it’s no problem if you make the quotations obvious in future.
As I accepted, point taken, and I will be more careful in the future.
Consider On Certainty(OC) 504, "Whether I know something depends on whether the evidence backs me up or contracts me. For to say one knows one has pain means nothing. "
The same goes for private sensations of color, for to say one knows one has the sensation of green means nothing.
Or, OC 548, "A child must learn the use of colour words before it can ask for the name of a colour." Again, the emphasis here is language use, not recognition of color sensations.
Quoting RussellA
Consider OC 505, "It is always by favor of Nature that one knows something." Notice he is not saying it is by the favor of our awareness of private sensations that one knows something. This is evidence he would not support Indirect Realism.
I will leave this discussion with one more quote from Wittgenstein from "Culture and Value" which suggest the importance of what can and cannot be said, "Couldn't one actually say equally well that the essence of colour guarantees its existence? As opposed, say, to white elephants. Because all that really means is: I cannot explain what 'colour' is, what the word "colour" means, except with the help of a colour sample. So in this case there is no such thing as explaining 'what it would be like if colors were to exist'.
It is true that in a sense to say one has the sensation of green means nothing, as the sensation of green is a private subjective experience and cannot be described in words. For example, how could you describe the colour violet to a person who cannot experience colours. When we do use the word "green" in language, this is a label and not a description.
As Wittgenstein writes in PI 15
The word "to signify" is perhaps used in the most straightforward way when the object signified is marked with the sign. Suppose that the tools A uses in building bear certain marks. When A shews his assistant such a mark, he brings the tool that has that mark on it. It is in this and more or less similar ways that a name means and is given to a thing.—It will often prove useful in philosophy to say to ourselves: naming something is like attaching a label to a thing.
and also in PI 26
One thinks that learning language consists in giving names to objects. Viz, to human beings, to shapes, to colours, to pains, to moods, to numbers, etc. . To repeat—naming is something like attaching a label to a thing.
Quoting Richard B
Words labelling inner private sensations are only possible if there is some outward sign of such inner private sensation. As Wittgenstein writes in PI 257:
"What would it be like if human beings shewed no outward signs of pain (did not groan, grimace, etc.)? Then it would be impossible to teach a child the use of the word 'tooth-ache'."
Even when there is an outward sign of an inner experience, such an outward sign does not describe the inner experience but only shows that there has been one. As Wittgenstein writes in PI 244:
"So you are saying that the word 'pain' really means crying?"—On the contrary: the verbal expression of pain replaces crying and does not describe it.
Language labels inner experiences, not describe them.
Quoting Richard B
Indirect Realism is a direct knowledge of the mind and an indirect knowledge of the world.
Wittgenstein in PI 246 writes that we know our private sensations:
In what sense are my sensations private?—Well, only I can know whether I am really in pain; another person can only surmise it.—In one way this is wrong, and in another nonsense. If we are using the word "to know" as it is normally used (and how else are we to use it?), then other people very often know when I am in pain.— Yes, but all the same not with the certainty with which I know it myself I—It can't be said of me at all (except perhaps as a joke) that I know I am in pain. What is it supposed to mean—except perhaps that I am in pain? Other people cannot be said to learn of my sensations only from my behaviour,—for I cannot be said to learn of them. I have them. The truth is: it makes sense to say about other people that they doubt whether I am in pain; but not to say it about myself.
It is true that he writes in OC 505 that "It is always by favour of Nature that one knows something", but what does he mean by this. It could mean that we know the private sensation of pain because a heavy object has fallen on our foot.
Taking the example of the Earth as something that exists in nature, throughout On Certainty, Wittgenstein writes about the belief in the existence of the Earth not from direct knowledge but from a coherent set of evidence that points to its existence.
He writes in OC 291 about his belief that the earth is round
[i]We know that the earth is round. We have definitively ascertained that it is round.
We shall stick to this opinion, unless our whole way of seeing nature changes. "How do you know that?" - I believe it.[/i]
He writes in OC 231 that his beliefs in the earth are supported by evidence
If someone doubted whether the earth had existed a hundred years ago, I should not understand, for this reason: I would not know what such a person would still allow to be counted as evidence and what not
He writes in OC 165 that a belief in the earth has been learnt
One child might say to another: "I know that the earth is already hundred of years old" and that would mean: I have learnt it.
As Wittgenstein writes that we directly know our sensations and only indirectly believe in the world, this is the position of an Indirect Realist.
Quoting Richard B
Although the private sensation of green cannot be said, the word "green" can be said within the language game. For Wittgenstein, we first know the private sensation green and then use the word "green" as a label for these private sensations, not as descriptions of them.
This is clarified by the Beetle in the Box analogy in PI 293
If I say of myself that it is only from my own case that I know what the word "pain" means—must I not say the same of other people too? And how can I generalize the one case so irresponsibly? Now someone tells me that he knows what pain is only from his own case!——Suppose everyone had a box with something in it: we call it a "beetle". No one can look into anyone else's box, and everyone says he knows what a beetle is only by looking at his beetle.—Here it would be quite possible for everyone to have something different in his box. One might even imagine such a thing constantly changing.—But suppose the word "beetle" had a use in these people's language?—If so it would not be used as the name of a thing. The thing in the box has no place in the language-game at all; not even as a something: for the box might even be empty.—No, one can 'divide through' by the thing in the box; it cancels out, whatever it is. That is to say: if we construe the grammar of the expression of sensation on the model of 'object and designation' the object drops out of consideration as irrelevant.
I don’t believe that the quote supports your reading.
In PI 246, Wittgenstein writes that he knows his private sensations with certainty, whereas other people only know his private sensations with less certainty.
He writes that he doesn't doubt that he is in pain, whereas other people may doubt that he is in pain.
Wittgenstein is introducing the concepts of doubt and certainty, which led to his book On Certainty. As AC Grayling said, a book of "serious philosophy".
Let me repeat your quote of PI 246 with some emphasis:
Quoting RussellA
Wittgenstein rejects the idea that we can know our private sensations.
PI 246 can be considered as having five separate parts.
Part one
In what sense are my sensations private?
He asks the question
Part two
Well, only I can know whether I am really in pain; another person can only surmise it.—In one way this is wrong, and in another nonsense. If we are using the word "to know" as it is normally used (and how else are we to use it?), then other people very often know when I am in pain.— Yes, but all the same not with the certainty with which I know it myself
It is true that it is often said that only I know I am in pain and other people can only surmise it.
But clearly this is in a sense wrong, otherwise it would be socially acceptable to kick dogs, for example, which is obviously not the case. So we do clearly know when other people are in pain, not just that we surmise it .
It comes down to the exact meaning of "know". This often depends on context. In one sense we do know when a loved one is in pain, but in another sense we cannot really know the pain of another person.
The word "know" has different levels of certainty. I know with certainty my own pain, and even though I know others feel pain, I can only know with less certainty their pain.
Part three
It can't be said of me at all (except perhaps as a joke) that I know I am in pain. What is it supposed to mean—except perhaps that I am in pain?
The word "know" seems to be redundant in the two propositions "I know I am in pain" and "I am in pain". Does that mean we can reject the idea that we can know our private sensations.
From PI 293, the thing in the box that has no place in the language-game is the sensation of pain. When he writes "I know what the word "pain" means", he is referring to the word "pain" as a concept in the language-game.
However, in order to say "I am in pain", I must already know the concept "pain". Therefore saying "I am in pain" is shorthand for saying that not only do I know the concept "pain" but also I know that my sensation has the name "pain".
If I know that my private sensation has a name, then it follows that I must also know that I am having a private sensation.
But if I know that I am having a private sensation, then I must know the private sensation that I am having.
IE, I can know a private sensation.
Part four
Other people cannot be said to learn of my sensations only from my behaviour,—for I cannot be said to learn of them. I have them.
He is saying that other people cannot learn his private sensations from his external behaviour as well as saying that I don't learn my sensations, I just have them.
Part five
The truth is: it makes sense to say about other people that they doubt whether I am in pain; but not to say it about myself
He is saying it makes sense to say that he has no doubt that he is in pain, whereas other people may doubt that he is in pain.
I don’t believe redundancy is the reason why “it can’t be said of me at all (except perhaps as a joke) that I know I am in pain.” What sort of joke would it be to redundantly say “I know I’m in pain”?
The reason one cannot know their private sensations relates to the grammar of the word “know”, which Wittgenstein spends more time examining in On Certainty.
In order for something to be known/knowable, it must be able to be learned, doubted and surmised and we must be able to satisfy ourselves of its truth or falsity. It is because one cannot learn, doubt, surmise, etc. about their own private sensation that it cannot be known.
PI 246 is contradictory in that it doesn't distinguish between sensation and concept
In what sense are my sensations private?—Well, only I can know whether I am really in pain; another person can only surmise it.—In one way this is wrong, and in another nonsense
Wittgenstein is saying that it is said that only I know that I am in pain, whereas others can only surmise it. But he is surely saying that this is wrong because others also know that I am in pain.
If we are using the word "to know" as it is normally used (and how else are we to use it?), then other people very often know when I am in pain.— Yes, but all the same not with the certainty with which I know it myself
Wittgenstein is saying that others know I am in pain, but not with the same certainty that I know when I am in pain. The problem arises that Wittgenstein is not distinguishing between knowing a concept and knowing a sensation.
It can't be said of me at all (except perhaps as a joke) that I know I am in pain. What is it supposed to mean—except perhaps that I am in pain?
Wittgenstein is saying that when others say "he knows he is in pain", this is grammatically incorrect and means no more that "he is in pain". It is possible that someone could use a grammatically incorrect phrase as a joke.
However, in order to say "I am in pain", this presupposes that not only "I am having the sensation of pain" but also "I know the concept of pain". For example, if I didn't know the concept of pain, I wouldn't be able to distinguish between "I am in pain" and "I am hungry". Therefore the proposition "I am in pain" is shorthand for "I am having the sensation of pain and I know the concept of pain".
Other people cannot be said to learn of my sensations only from my behaviour,—for I cannot be said to learn of them. I have them.
The key word is "only". It is true that other people cannot learn of another's sensations purely from that person's behaviour if they didn't have their own sensations that produced the same behaviour in themselves.
The truth is: it makes sense to say about other people that they doubt whether I am in pain; but not to say it about myself
Wittgenstein is saying that although it makes sense for others to doubt that I am in pain, it makes no sense for me to doubt that I am in pain.
PI 246 is contradictory in that Wittgenstein doesn't distinguish between sensation and concept. On the one hand he uses the word "know" to refer to a concept: If we are using the word "to know" as it is normally used (and how else are we to use it?), then other people very often know when I am in pain.— Yes, but all the same not with the certainty with which I know it myself and on the other hand he uses the word "know" to refer to a sensation: It can't be said of me at all (except perhaps as a joke) that I know I am in pain. What is it supposed to mean—except perhaps that I am in pain?
It's unclear what distinction you think there should be between sensation and concept, or how you think this distinction would help. However, Wittgenstein does discuss how words might refer to sensations at 244.
If 246 seems contradictory, it may be because Wittgenstein speaks in more than one voice, where he often gives voice to common philosophical assumptions/confusions before giving his corrective responses to them. The voice that expresses common (mistaken) philosophical assumptions is sometimes referred to in the literature as Wittgenstein's interlocutor.
I would say that there are two instances of the interlocutor's voice at 246. I will highlight Wittgenstein's interlocutor in bold (and extra spacing) in the quote below. The other sentences are Wittgenstein's responses:
Quoting RussellA
He says that others (often) know when he is in pain. He does not say that he (also) knows when he is in pain. As he states later in the passage, it can't be said of him at all that he knows he is in pain.
Quoting RussellA
This is stated in the interlocutor's voice, giving voice to the mistaken philosophical assumption that only the person in pain can know with any certainty that they are in pain. He immediately provides a correction to this in the following sentence, stating that it can't be said of him at all that he knows he is in pain.
Quoting RussellA
He is making a stronger statement than this. It is not merely that it is redundant to say "I know" (that I am in pain). Wittgenstein tells us (here and in other places) that it is nonsense to say he knows he is in pain; that it does not make sense to say it.
Quoting RussellA
This would suggest that we always append "and I know the concept of x" to every concept we ever talk about, or every word we ever use. However, I don't think that's what "I am in pain" means, and I don't believe we are always talking about our knowledge of concepts in everything we say. I imagine that only a very small percentage of discussion (or language use) is about our knowledge of concepts. Also, sometimes we don't know the concept of x when we talk about or use the word 'x'.
Quoting RussellA
I agree that the key word is "only" here. I also think this is an important part of the Wittgensteinian puzzle. However, I don't see how this supports your assent to the statement: "I know I am in pain."
Quoting RussellA
If it makes no sense to doubt (that I am in pain), then it makes no sense to know (that I am in pain).
Quoting RussellA
Wittgenstein doesn't use "know" to refer to a sensation. Knowledge isn't a sensation. The only sensation he refers to here is pain.
Quoting Luke
A "cube" is an example of a concept. Wittgenstein is saying that we know and understand the word "cube" not from the sensation of seeing a picture of it but rather from how the word is used.
PI 139 When someone says the word "cube" to me, for example, I know what it means.
Wittgenstein is asking how we know the role of the King in a game of chess. In broader terms, how do we know the rules of the language-game. He says that it is not by definition, which leads to the problem of circularity, but rather from observing how other people use the King when playing chess. We learn concepts from how the concept is used over a period of time, rather than from any momentary definition or particular sensation.
PI 31In this case we shall say: the words "This is the king" (or "This is called the 'king' ") are a definition only if the learner already 'knows what a piece in a game is'. That is, if he has already played other games, or has watched other people playing 'and understood'—and similar things.
For Wittgenstein, sensations are particular and immediate events, such as a smell, a touch, a pain.
PI 24 Think how many different kinds of thing are called "description": description of a body's position by means of its co-ordinates; description of a facial expression; description of a sensation of touch; of a mood.
There are two aspects to the word "pain". The general universal concept, as with any concept, such as house, love, government, trees and the particular momentary sensation, such as a biting pain, an acrid smell, a bitter taste. Both aspects of the word must be taken into account to avoid ambiguity in any paragraph.
Quoting Luke
I agree that in normal conversation we don't talk about the meaning of the concepts we use, but rather just use them. That being said, as a concept is an abstract idea, I would have said that every word we use in the language-game is a concept. The language game is a game of concepts.
However, in Wittgenstein's terms, our knowledge of the concepts we use in the language game doesn't come from discussing them in a definitional sense, but rather from using them. It is true that definitions are invaluable in helping us gain knowledge of the concepts we use, but only in structuring the relationship between concepts, not in explaining the meaning of an individual concept.
We may not specifically discuss our knowledge of concepts, but concepts are the foundation of any discussion we have.
Quoting Luke
I agree that his sentence "Well, only I can know whether I am really in pain; another person can only surmise it." is that of the interlocutor.
However, I am not so sure that his sentence"Yes, but all the same, not with the certainty with which I know it myself!" is that of the interlocutor or his own position.
For example, Wittgenstein writes that he has sensations
PI 246 Other people cannot be said to learn of my sensations only from my behaviour,—for I cannot be said to learn of them. I have them
He also writes that he doesn't doubt his sensations
PI 246 - The truth is: it makes sense to say about other people that they doubt whether I am in pain; but not to say it about myself.
He also links indubitability with certainty.
From the SEP article on Certainty: Ludwig Wittgenstein also seems to connect certainty with indubitability.
From OC 115: If you tried to doubt everything you would not get as far as doubting anything. The game of doubting itself presupposes certainty.
In PI 246 he is linking certainty with knowing.
Yes, but all the same not with the certainty with which I know it myself
As the trail leads from his having sensation that he doesn't doubt, to linking indubitability with certainty and then linking certainty with knowing, this suggests that this statement is his own position rather than that of an interlocutor.
Quoting Luke
If I said "I don't know I am in pain", this means that I don't know the meaning of the concept "pain", and therefore don't know whether my sensation is that of pain or not, For example, my sensation could be that of hunger.
Therefore, to say "I know I am in pain" means that I do know the meaning of the concept "pain", and therefore do know that my sensation is that of pain.
To say "I am in pain" means that I do know the meaning of the concept "pain", and therefore do know that my sensation is that of pain.
The statements "I know I am in pain" and "I am in pain" have an identical meaning, ie, as I know the meaning of the concept "pain", I know that my sensation is that of pain.
Therefore, it is allowable within the language game to say "I know I am in pain", as it has the same meaning as "I am in pain".
If we revisit the context in which the latter sentence occurs:
I would consider "Yes, but all the same..." to be a reaction or response to Wittgenstein's unbolded remarks that immediately precede it, which I believe are made in a different voice. I don't think "Yes, but all the same" makes sense other than as a disagreement with what came before it. That is, I don't see that it would make sense for Wittgenstein to say that people very often know that he is in pain and then to follow up with "Yes, but all the same..." This does not sound to me as though it is in agreement with, or a continuation of, his preceding remarks or that these are given in a singular voice. I could not imagine someone speaking and then reacting to their own comment with "Yes, but all the same..."
Quoting RussellA
This all hangs on your assumption that he is linking certainty with knowing in PI 246. I don't believe that he is. I believe that this line ("Yes, but all the same...") is given in the voice of the interlocutor instead of in Wittgenstein's own voice. I can see that what you've said here all follows if you assume that it isn't given in the voice of the interlocutor. But I disagree, and your mere assumption to the contrary is not an argument for why my reading is incorrect.
Quoting RussellA
If you did not know the meaning of the concept "pain", I think it would be more natural for you to say "I don't know what "pain" means". Alternatively, "I don't know I am in pain" sounds to me like broken English, and I can't make much sense of it.
Quoting RussellA
You're allowed to say anything, but whether you make any sense is another matter. Wittgenstein indicates that it does not make any sense to say "I know I am in pain".
I'm not saying I'm necessarily right, but it does force one to be very careful when reading Wittgenstein.
My reading of PI 246, where Wittgenstein is unbolded and the interlocutor is bolded
1) In what sense are my sensations private?
2) Well, only I can know whether I am really in pain; another person can only surmise it
3) In one way this is wrong, and in another nonsense. If we are using the word "to know" as it is normally used (and how else are we to use it?), then other people very often know when I am in pain.
4) Yes, but all the same not with the certainty with which I know it myself I
5) It can't be said of me at all (except perhaps as a joke) that I know I am in pain. What is it supposed to mean—except perhaps that I am in pain?
6) Other people cannot be said to learn of my sensations only from my behaviour,—for I cannot be said to learn of them. I have them.
7) The truth is: it makes sense to say about other people that they doubt whether I am in pain; but not to say it about myself.
I agree that 2) is the interlocutor and 3) is Wittgenstein. I agree that 4) is a disagreement with what came before it. However, both 2) and 3) came before it.
Reading whereby 4) disagrees with 2) rather than 3)
Then 3) is also Wittgenstein, where he is saying that the idea that another person can only surmise that I am pain is wrong. In fact, they don't surmise it but know it, although with less certainty than myself. This agrees with the normal use of the word "to know", when we say "I know you are suffering at the moment", accepting that one cannot know another person's suffering with the intensity that one knows one's own.
Quoting Luke
Whether Wittgenstein is linking certainty with knowing depends on whether 4) is that of the interlocutor or Wittgenstein.
If my reading is correct, then Wittgenstein is linking certainty with knowing.
Wittgenstein attacks the idea of a private language
Wittgenstein in PI 246 includes the idea that to say "I know I am in pain" may only be said as a joke:
PI 246 It can't be said of me at all (except perhaps as a joke) that I know I am in pain. What is it supposed to mean—except perhaps that I am in pain?
In which situation is Wittgenstein thinking about whereby to say "I know I am in pain" would be nonsense?
If I said either "I am in pain" or "I know I am in pain", either I am having a conversation with myself or a conversation with others.
If I am having a conversation with myself, the statement "I am in pain" is sufficient, as no justification is possible nor needed. Any justification would be self-referential, along the lines "I know I am in pain because I know I am pain". In this situation, when conversing with myself, to say "I know I am in pain" would be nonsense.
Referring to SEP Private Language, Wittgenstein in PI 244 to 271 attacks the idea of any private language, as any such private language would be unintelligible not only to the originator but also to any listener. Therefore the only situation where "I know I am in pain" may be said as a joke is in a private language, which Wittgenstein attacks as unintelligible.
One therefore concludes that the sentence in PI 246 has been spoken by the interlocutor, not Wittgenstein.
Wittgenstein's Language Game
However, if I am having a conversation with others, then to say "I know I am pain" is no longer nonsensical, but an accepted and reasonable normal part of language. It is normal to say "I know I am in Paris", "I know it is time to leave" or "I know governments are necessary".
As one can say in normal language both "I am in Paris" and "I know I am in Paris", it is surely acceptable to say both "I am in pain" and "I know I am in pain".
Within the language game, the word "pain" refers to a general concept contained within the language game rather than any particular sensation within a person.
In PI 293. Wittgenstein discusses a beetle in a box, where the beetle has no place in the language game at all and drops out of consideration as irrelevant. The particular private sensation of pain is the beetle in the box, and as such cannot be talked about. Within the language game the word "pain" is a concept, something general rather than particular, and refers to a general concept rather than a particular sensation .
"I am in Paris" is a belief. Whether true or not depends on whether one is in Paris.
"I know I am in Paris" is a belief that in order to be true needs to be followed by a justification that one is in Paris, such as "because I can see the Eiffel Tower".
"I am in pain" is a belief. Whether true or not depends on whether one is using the word "pain" correctly.
"I know I am in pain" is a belief that in order to be true needs to be followed by a justification that one is using the word "pain" correctly, such as "because others say they are in pain when in the same situation as I am"
The above are justified beliefs. Knowledge requires them to be true. What makes propositions such as "I know I am in Paris"or "I know I am in pain" true? They cannot be made true by facts in the world, such as I am truly in Paris or I am truly in pain, as within Wittgenstein's language game, the object, the beetle in the box, drops out of consideration and cannot be talked about.
Wittgenstein's Hinge Propositions
This takes us into On Certainty, notes on knowledge, doubt, scepticism and certainty.
Referring to Wikipedia Here is one Hand, the book's starting position is GE Moore's A Proof of the External World. Wittgenstein asks how Moore knows he is holding up a hand, as any knowledge claim can be doubted.
Moore argued against scepticism in favour of common sense by making the following argument: i) here is one hand, ii) and here is another, iii) there are at least two external objects in the world, iv) therefore, an external world exists.
Wittgenstein says that propositions such as "here is a hand" should not be thought of as empirical statements open to doubt, but rather as a "hinge proposition" that cannot be doubted. Hinge propositions are part of the framework of a logical language, on which other propositions are built. The proposition "here is a hand" is establishing how "hand" is to be used within a coherent language game, not making an empirical claim about the existence of a hand in the world.
Hinge propositions are the foundation of a language game, thereby creating a coherent whole that cannot be doubted. The truth of a proposition within the language game comes from such hinge propositions, not facts in the world, not whether or not I am truly in Paris or truly in pain.
Knowledge is justified true belief. Moore believes that the external world exists. He justifies his belief by pointing out that at least two objects exist in the world and founded on the hinge proposition that here is a hand that exists in the world. Moore can then say that "I know the world exists because here is a hand" rather than make the unjustified statement that "the world exists".
Wittgenstein in PI 244 writes about words as replacing rather than describing pain-behaviour
A child has hurt himself and he cries; and then adults talk to him and teach him exclamations and, later, sentences. They teach the child new pain-behaviour. "So you are saying that the word 'pain' really means crying?"— On the contrary: the verbal expression of pain replaces crying and does not describe it.
Summary
Similarly, I believe that pain exists. I justify my belief by pointing out that I cry when suffering from pain and founded on the hinge proposition that one cries when suffering pain. I can then say that "I know I am in pain because I cry when suffering" rather than the unjustified "I am in pain".
Within Wittgenstein's Language Game, it makes sense to say "I know I am in pain".
Does it make sense to say "I don't know if I'm in pain"?
In a private language it wouldn't make sense, as either "I am in pain" or "I am not in pain". Adding the word "know" would be redundant.
However Wittgenstein in PI 244 to 271 attacks the idea of any private language. He argued that any such private language would be unintelligible not only to the originator but also to any listener.
Wittgenstein in PI 293 uses the beetle in the box analogy to show that words such as "pain" in the language game are disconnected from whatever unknown thing there is in the mind of the individual, whether a sensation of pain or anything else, as such an unknown thing has no place in the language game at all.
Therefore in the language game of everyday conversation, it does make sense to say "I don't know if I'm answering the question", "I don't know if I'm in Nevada" or "I don't know if I'm correct".
It also depends on how the word accurately describes one's sensations, such as "I don't know if I'm in pain or just discomfort", "I don't know if I'm in pain or emotionally tormented", "I don't know if I'm in pain or extremely sore".
Or perhaps the speaker doesn't have a complete understanding of the meaning of the words, such as a speaker of a foreign language. Perhaps a Spaniard who doesn't know how to translate the word "dolor", or a German who wants the nearest equivalent to "schmerzen".
There are many occasions within the language game when it makes sense to say "I don't know if I'm in pain".
These two bolded sentences - which you believe are both said by the interlocutor - contradict each other. I don't see why the interlocutor would say both that "only I can know whether I am really in pain" and "It can't be said of me at all...that I know I am in pain".
Why do you think the interlocutor would contradict himself?
It is more likely that the second sentence is not the interlocutor's.
As you say, either I am in pain or not, but whether it is the one or the other does not depend on language. If it were something that I can 'know' then it is something I might not know. If it makes no sense to say that I do not know if I am in pain then it makes no sense to say that I know I am in pain.
If I don't know if I am in pain then perhaps I should take an aspirin just in case. But then again, I might not be in pain so perhaps I don't need an aspirin after all.
PI 246.
It seems to me that there can be no definitive reading of Wittgenstein because of inherent ambiguities with his text
I am partly repeating myself, but I think PI 246 does illustrate why many people dislike Wittgenstein, mainly because of the ambiguities in the text. PI 246 does illustrate that there cannot be one definitive reading of Wittgenstein, although his text is invaluable as a foundation for one's own ideas. Reading in context cannot solve the problem, only exacerbate the problem by increasing the number of ambiguities.
1) In what sense are my sensations private?
Ignoring the given text, what would be a sensible topic? For example, I have private sensations such as pain and hunger, and the question is, can anyone else ever know my private sensations. On the assumption that Wittgenstein is a sensible person, this infers that 1) is Wittgenstein.
[i]2) Well, only I can know whether I am really in pain; another person can only surmise it
3) In one way this is wrong, and in another nonsense. If we are using the word "to know" as it is normally used (and how else are we to use it?), then other people very often know when I am in pain.[/i]
Ignoring which is the interlocutor and which is Wittgenstein, what do we already know from our personal experience. We know that it is common in everyday conversation to say "I know you are in pain over the death of your relative" rather than the less personal "I surmise you are in pain over the death of your relative". Therefore, 3) agrees with what we already know regardless of the given text. If we make the assumption that Wittgenstein is a sensible person, this infers that 3) is Wittgenstein. As 3) says that 2) is wrong, this infers that 2) is the interlocutor.
4) Yes, but all the same not with the certainty with which I know it myself
It is not immediately obvious whether Wittgenstein is referring to 2) or 3).
If he is referring to 2), then he would be saying "Only I know that I am pain, whilst others surmise it with less certainty than I know it myself ". But this clearly does not make sense as a sentence. Therefore 4) cannot be referring to 2).
Therefore he must be referring to 3). What he is saying in everyday language is that I can say "I know I am in pain" and someone else can say of me "I know he is in pain", but I know I am in pain with certainty and they know I am in pain with less certainty. IE, in everyday language, in the language game, the word know can be used to imply certainty, such as "I know it is raining", or to imply some uncertainty, such as "I know it will rain".
As 4) is a sensible thing to say, and assuming that Wittgenstein is a sensible person, this infers that 4) is Wittgenstein.
5) It can't be said of me at all (except perhaps as a joke) that I know I am in pain. What is it supposed to mean—except perhaps that I am in pain?
Ignoring the text, what would be a sensible topic? As regards my private language, the word "know" in the phrase "I know I am in pain" is redundant and serves no useful purpose, and therefore would only make sense if said as a joke. As regards the language game, to say "I know I am in pain" would make sense, and therefore wouldn't be considered as being used as a joke.
Therefore if 5) refers to a private language, then it would be a sensible thing to say, and assuming Wittgenstein to be a sensible person, then 5) would be Wittgenstein. But if 5) refers to the language game, then it wouldn't be a sensible thing to say, and assuming Wittgenstein to be a sensible person, then 5) would be the interlocutor
As it is unclear whether 5) is referring to a private language or the language game, it is unclear whether this is Wittgenstein's opinion or the interlocutor's
6) Other people cannot be said to learn of my sensations only from my behaviour,—for I cannot be said to learn of them. I have them.
Ignoring the text, in everyday conversation it would be a sensible thing to say that if someone saw my crying, and had never experienced pain themselves, then they couldn't learn the sensation of pain just from observing someone else's pain-behaviour. On the other hand, if I feel a pain and then cry, I am not learning the sensation of pain from my crying.
Assuming Wittgenstein to be a sensible person, as 6) is a sensible thing to say, 6) must be Wittgenstein.
7) The truth is: it makes sense to say about other people that they doubt whether I am in pain; but not to say it about myself.
Ignoring the given text, as regards my private language, as with the word "know", the word "doubt" in the phrase "I doubt that I am in pain" is redundant and serves no useful purpose. If I am in pain, there is no doubt in my mind that I am in pain. However in the language game, as another person can only judge my private sensations from my outward pain-behaviour, it makes sense that they should doubt whether I am in pain or not.
The problem within 7) is that Wittgenstein seems to be mixing up references on the one hand to a private language, ie, "myself", and on the other hand to other people and the language game, ie "other people".
Overall however, accepting that Wittgenstein is mixing up his references, 7) seems to be Wittgenstein.
How can Wittgenstein in PI 246 use examples from a private language whilst arguing that private languages are unintelligible?
My problem with PI 246 is that part refers to a private language and part refers to a public language game, yet in PI 244 to 271 Wittgenstein attacks the idea of any private language as unintelligible not only to the originator but also to any listener.
For example, item 7) The truth is: it makes sense to say about other people that they doubt whether I am in pain; but not to say it about myself.
The phrase "it makes sense to say about other people that they doubt whether I am in pain"
makes sense within a language game, involving not only me but other people.
But the phrase "but not to say it about myself" initially seems to be within a private language, but as Wittgenstein says that private languages are unintelligible, this infers that even to say "I am in pain" is within the language game.
Then if all our talk about our own pain is within the language game, then it is more than acceptable to say "I know I am in pain".
As the pain you are referring to cannot be the beetle in the box, as the something in the box drops out of consideration in the language game, the pain you are referring to must be part of the language game, and therefore does depend on language.
PI 293 - If I say of myself that it is only from my own case that I know what the word "pain" means—must I not say the same of other people too? And how can I generalize the one case so irresponsibly? Now someone tells me that he knows what pain is only from his own case!——Suppose everyone had a box with something in it: we call it a "beetle". No one can look into anyone else's box, and everyone says he knows what a beetle is only by looking at his beetle.—Here it would be quite possible for everyone to have something different in his box.
Quoting Fooloso4
Yes, if the something is "the distance from the Earth to the Moon", then this is something that I may know or may not know.
Quoting Fooloso4
"Pain" is a word that has a meaning in the language game, and there is no guarantee that I am using all my words correctly. For example, within the language game it makes sense to say "I do not know if I am in pain" if this means "I do not not know if I am in pain, it may be extreme soreness or just discomfort"
It makes sense to say in the language game "I do not know if I am in pain" if there is any doubt about my understanding of the word "pain".
I may use language to refer to pain, but neither the experience of pain nor the expression of pain depend on language.
Quoting RussellA
Pain and the word "pain" are not the same. We can know that a baby is in pain even though she has no words to express her pain. Her being in pain does not depend on a language game. It makes no sense to say that she is in pain but doesn't know it.
You have said a lot, but you did not address my previous post or answer my question, namely:
Quoting Luke
Do you acknowledge that your numbered sections 2 and 5 contradict each other? I don't understand why you would attribute two contradictory statements to Wittgenstein's interlocutor. If you aren't going to address the content of my posts, then I have little interest in responding further.
I will just point out where I think you are going wrong in your latest post:
Quoting RussellA
It is immediately obvious.
At the end of 3, Wittgenstein says: "other people very often know when I am in pain". The interlocutor responds at 4 with: "Yes, but all the same not with the certainty with which I know it myself". Wittgenstein then corrects them at 5 with: "It can't be said of me at all...that I know I am in pain."
Quoting RussellA
What do you mean by your "private language"? Do you mean talking to yourself in English? Because that is not a private language.
Quoting RussellA
To say something redundant(ly) is not to say something senseless. One can still make sense by saying something redundant. Wittgenstein does not say that "I know I am in pain" is redundant. He says "It can't be said of me at all...that I know I am in pain." It is senseless to say "I know I am in pain"; it is not merely redundant.
Quoting RussellA
I don't understand what you mean by "a private language, ie. "myself"". Are you saying that you are a private language?
Quoting RussellA
I don't think you understand what is meant by a private language. At 243, W states: "The words of this language are to refer to what only the speaker can know — to his immediate private sensations. So another person cannot understand the language."
Wittgenstein repeatedly attacks the assumption that a private language is possible (or is a coherent concept).
Wittgenstein discusses pain-behaviour in PI 244, 282, 302, 304 and 393.
How can the word "pain" refer to a sensation pain.
We know a rock is not in pain because it expresses no pain behaviour, whereas we know a living human being can be in pain because it expresses pain-behaviour. Yet how do we know that a rock, even though not expressing pain-behaviour, is actually in pain, and how do we know that a child, expressing pain-behaviour, is not actually in pain. Does an actor on the stage need the private sensation of fear and loathing to be able to express the sensations of fear and loathing.
What is the function of language and words such as "pain". Perhaps not to convey thoughts about things such as houses, pains, good and evil, but rather, taking the case of pain, as a replacement for pain-behaviour, where the word "pain" replaces the pain-behaviour of crying rather than describing any unknown cause of the pain-behaviour.
How do you know someone is in pain, when all you know is pain-behaviour. When you say that you know someone is in pain, isn't all you saying that you know that they are expressing pain-behaviour. The word "pain" in the language game is replacing the observed pain-behaviour rather than describing an unknown something.
Is this not the same situation as for the direct Realist, who would say that if one observes something green in colour, then in the world is also something green in colour. The Direct Realist conflates effect with cause, equating what has been observed with an unknown cause of that observation. The Direct Realist would equate pain-behaviour, replaced in the language game by the word "pain", with the unknown something that is assumed to have caused such pain-behaviour, whether a beetle or a pain.
As Wittgenstein says, the beetle in the box is not a something but it is not a nothing either, meaning that even though everyone's beetle may be different, it is not a nothing.
I don't know where you are trying to go with any of this.
2) PI 246 Well, only I can know whether I am really in pain; another person can only surmise it
5) PI 246 It can't be said of me at all (except perhaps as a joke) that I know I am in pain. What is it supposed to mean—except perhaps that I am in pain?
We both agree that 2) is the interlocutor
You believe that 5) is Wittgenstein. I am unsure.
As I wrote in my last post:
If we make the assumption that Wittgenstein is a sensible person, this infers that 3) is Wittgenstein. As 3) says that 2) is wrong, this infers that 2) is the interlocutor.
As it is unclear whether 5) is referring to a private language or the language game, it is unclear whether this is Wittgenstein's opinion or the interlocutor's
Quoting Luke
I agree when you say: "Wittgenstein repeatedly attacks the idea that a private language is possible"
I agree when you say "He (Wittgenstein) says "It can't be said of me at all.........that I know I am in pain" It is senseless to say "I know I am in pain""
Wittgenstein agrees in PI 304 that we can have private inchoate feelings, ie, sensations, but argues that no one else can ever know what these private feelings are. He is not just saying that a private language understood only by the speaker is impossible, but that the very existence of a private language is impossible. These private inchoate feelings can only be given form within a community of other minds using a language game, thereby breaking the problem of solipsism. Within the language game, when I say "I am in pain", I am not taking about my private personal experience, but rather talking about the concept of pain that exists in the minds of the community of which I am part.
In a private language, to say "I am in pain" requires no justification, other than "I know I am in pain because I am in pain", in which event the word "know" has no function.
However, in the language game, to say "I am in pain" does require a justification. For example, "I know I am in pain because I am experiencing both localized and generalized unpleasant bodily sensations causing me severe physical discomfort and emotional distress". In the language game, the word "know" does have a definite function.
5) PI 246 It can't be said of me at all (except perhaps as a joke) that I know I am in pain. What is it supposed to mean—except perhaps that I am in pain?
I interpret 5) as meaning that it would be unreasonable for me to say that "I know I am in pain", as this means no more than "I am in pain".
But the only situation where to say "I know I am in pain" requires no justification is in a private language, but as Wittgenstein attacks the idea of the possibility of a private language, 5) cannot be Wittgenstein's position but that of an interlocutor.
You said "We can know that a baby is in pain even though she has no words to express her pain."
How can you know the private sensations of another person just from their behaviour?
The baby has been crying nonstop. Her fists are clenched, she cannot settle down, her breathing is not normal, and her facial expression is the same as it was that time I accidentally dropped her, and that time her brother hit her. But I try to ignore this. I am busy reading philosophy and have become convinced that I cannot know from the baby's behavior that she is in pain. I try feeding her but she won't eat. I change her diaper but that does not help.
It gets to the point where I can no longer ignore the crying. I call a friend who suggests I look online for signs that a baby is in pain. The description of a child in pain closely matches the behavior of my child, but I think: "How can you know the private sensations of another person just from their behaviour?" I concludes you can't. I cannot know the baby is in pain so do nothing. She'll stop eventually.
It seems very clear to me that 5) is not referring to a private language, and I don't understand how it possibly could be. What makes you think that it is?
Quoting RussellA
There is no distinction here. A private language understood only by the speaker is (the very existence of) a private language.
Quoting RussellA
The point of 304 (and elsewhere) - at least, on my reading - is that the concept of "pain" is not based on the private feeling that nobody else can perceive, but on the expression of the sensation; on the behaviour (that others can perceive). I take this to be the point of 307, for example.
The concept does not exist only "in the minds of the community", but also in their behaviour. One may demonstrate that they don't understand a concept by what they say or do.
Quoting RussellA
If a private language can be understood only by the speaker, then to whom is one saying "I am in pain" (in English)? The English language is not a private language, so I don't understand what you mean.
Quoting RussellA
I don't believe that it always, or even often, requires a justification. I think the only time it might require justification is if others didn't believe you were actually in pain or if you had to prove it for some reason.
Quoting RussellA
Have you ever said this? Has anyone?
Quoting RussellA
I agree with you on that much.
Quoting RussellA
I agree that one does not need to justify one's sensation of pain to oneself.
Quoting RussellA
What does 5) have to do with a private language?
A private language can only be understood by its speaker. "I know I am in pain" is an English phrase and the English language is spoken by over a billion people on Earth. Therefore, "I know I am in pain" is not part of a private language.
Since I don't follow your connection between 5) and a private language, I see no reason to accept that 5) is said by an interlocutor.
On the other hand: Quoting Fooloso4
How to resolve this quandary?
The second statement was intended to be ironic. Skepticism in the service of negligence.
Quoting Fooloso4
I am sure that Wittgenstein didn't intend Philosophical Investigations, of which a significant feature is about not being able to know another person's inner sensations from their outward behaviour, as irony.
The irony refers to the consequences of your interpretation. I read the following:
as a statement of fact. As we normally use the word "know" it does not mean that I cannot be misled or mistaken. Whether it is the pre-linguistic behavior of a baby or the verbal expression of pain, doing nothing and pleading ignorance won't hold water.
Yes, Wittgenstein does say that we can know something with more or less certainty.
PI 246 - Yes, but all the same not with the certainty with which I know it myself
Yes, I can know something with more or less certainty, but what exactly is it that one is knowing. Is one knowing the other person's sensations, or is one knowing the other person's behaviour.
Wittgenstein included PI 293 about the beetle in the box to point out that the word "pain" as it is normally used in language, in the language game, is not describing the other person's sensations, but is replacing a particular behaviour.
Yes, in the language game, we can say "I know they are in pain", but what does that mean exactly. According to the beetle in the box analogy, as the word "pain" is replacing a particular behaviour, the expression means "I know they are exhibiting a particular behaviour, and I know that this particular behaviour has been replaced by the word "pain"".
One knows from the other's behavior that they are in pain.
Quoting RussellA
Wittgenstein included PI 293 about the beetle in the box to point out that:
(293)
When I use the word "pain" when referring to another person I am not replacing a particular behavior, but when they complain that they are in pain they are replacing some other form of behavior that expresses their pain, such as crying, with a verbal expression of pain.
5) PI 246 It can't be said of me at all (except perhaps as a joke) that I know I am in pain. What is it supposed to mean—except perhaps that I am in pain?
I interpret 5) as meaning that it would be unreasonable for me to say that "I know I am in pain", as this means no more than "I am in pain".
I agree when you say: "I agree that one does not need to justify one's sensation of pain to oneself." and the word "know" has a definite function in the language game.
Knowledge is justified true belief.
Suppose my belief is that I am in Paris, and my justification is that I can see the Eiffel Tower. If it is true that I am in Paris, then I know I am in Paris.
But as regards my thought that I am in pain, this needs no justification as it is true. Thinking I am in pain is sufficient. Thinking that I know I am in pain would be redundant .
But this is the same idea as expressed in item 5), inferring that item 5) is referring to one's inner thoughts rather than any public language game. In other words, to one's private language.
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Quoting Luke
It is the difference between keeping a diary in PI 258 and the beetle in the box in PI 293.
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Quoting Luke
Agree.
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Quoting Luke
I have the thought "I am in pain". Following on from the Tractatus, para 4: A thought is proposition with a sense, for Wittgenstein, thoughts are "sentences in the head".
As no one else can know my inner thoughts, no one else can know my inner language. This inner language is a type of a private language. If I am saying "I am in pain" in my inner language, only I can hear it. If I am saying "I am in pain" in the language game, then others can hear it.
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Quoting Luke
In the language game, every word needs to be justified if the language has to have any coherent meaning.
For example, if I said "Yesterday, I visited the xxyx", without any justification for the inclusion of the phrase "xxyx", the sentence would be meaningless.
If I said "I am in dolor", again the sentence would be meaningless until I had justified the inclusion of the word "dolor" by explaining that it meant "experiencing both localized and generalized unpleasant bodily sensations causing me severe physical discomfort and emotional distress"
If speaking to an audience not knowing the meaning of "dolor", I would need to say "I am experiencing both localized and generalized unpleasant bodily sensations causing me severe physical discomfort and emotional distress"
If speaking to an audience who already know the meaning of "dolor", it would be sufficient to say "I am in dolor"
Either way, every word being used in a language game needs a justification for its use, whether or not the audience already know its meaning.
Wittgenstein says at 5) that "I know I am in pain" might mean "I am in pain", which is how you read it. But you are ignoring the first part where he says that "I know I am in pain" can't be said of him at all. The point is that "I know" is being misused here. One cannot know they are in pain because being in pain is not something that can be doubted or learned; it is not something that one can come to know or that one can satisfy themselves is true or false. That one is in pain lies outside the scope of knowledge; it is non-epistemic. It's different to those facts that we can doubt or learn or come to know or satisfy ourselves is true or false, such as the capital city of China or the length of the Nile.
This is why it can't be said of me at all that "I know I am in pain", and that all it could possibly mean is that I am in pain.
Quoting RussellA
As I've said several times now, a phrase spoken in English to oneself (or thought in English in "one's inner thoughts") does not constitute a private language. 5) is written in English, not in a private language. "I know I am in pain" is also written in English, not in a private language. 5) does not refer to a private language.
Quoting RussellA
No, it's not. A (private) language understood only by the speaker is the definition of a private language.
Besides, the beetle in the box has no place in the language game and a private language speaker has no language game to play.
Quoting RussellA
"I am in pain" is an English phrase, and is not part of a private language, by definition. Again, Wittgenstein tells us at 243 (my emphasis):
It must not be possible, in principle, for another person to understand the language. Saying to yourself in your inner language "I am in pain" is something that any English speaker could understand.
One knows that are exhibiting pain behaviour, not that one knows they are in pain.
PI 304 "But you will surely admit that there is a difference between pain-behaviour accompanied by pain and pain-behaviour without any pain?"—Admit it?
Quoting Fooloso4
A person sees a child crying and says "she is crying". The phrase "in pain" replaces the crying behaviour. The person can then say "she is in pain".
A child is in pain and cries. The child learns that the phrase "in pain" replaces crying. The child can then say "I am in pain"
Note that the phrase "in pain" replaces the behaviour, not describe the sensation.
PI 244 How do words refer to sensations?........... On the contrary: the verbal expression of pain replaces crying and does not describe it
It could have been in different circumstances that the phrase "happy" had replaced crying.
The person would then have said "she is happy" and the child would have said "I am happy"
The phrase "happy" would still have replaced the behaviour, not describe the sensation.
We could go round and round again and again, but I won't.
I agree, because as you say:"That one is in pain lies outside the scope of knowledge; it is non-epistemic"
As outside the scope of knowledge, such an expression can only be understood by the speaker, and as you also say:"A (private) language understood only by the speaker is the definition of a private language", which I also agree with.
However, the problem arises that we can only discuss a private language using a public language, a language game, as it is also true as you say that:""I am in pain" is an English phrase, and is not part of a private language, by definition"
So we are left with the quandary of how to talk about a private language, something that is outside the scope of knowledge, something non-epistemic, using language, a language game, that is by its nature inside the scope of knowledge, something epistemic.
If that one is pain is outside the scope of knowledge, something that cannot be talked about in the language game, does that mean that item 5) PI 246 It can't be said of me at all (except perhaps as a joke) that I know I am in pain. What is it supposed to mean—except perhaps that I am in pain? is a meaningless statement?
We can talk about it in a public language; I see no issue there. However, the concept of a private language turns out to be incoherent, so the assumption that such a thing is possible should be rejected.
Quoting RussellA
That I am in pain can be talked about in the language game. That I am in pain can also be known by others. It is just something that I cannot know. I don't learn of, or doubt, or know my pains. I have them.
This is important to understand. It reaches into the issue of consciousness itself, and it's why Descartes is wrong about "I think, therefore I am." There is no such conclusion to be drawn. I simply think. Others know that I'm conscious, just as they know I'm in pain, but we as individuals have no such knowledge. It doesn't make sense to doubt one's consciousness or to doubt that one is in pain, at least as an epistemological issue because it's outside the scope of epistemology. Many language-games fall apart when using them to point to these inner conscious experiences. Even the idea that consciousness is an illusion is nonsense. It would be akin to saying that pain is an illusion.
One Sunday all the kids were walking in little parties with their fathers in the woods. The next Monday we were playing in a field, and a kid said to me, "What's that bird? Do you know the name of that bird?" I said, "I haven't the slightest idea."He said, "Well, it is a brown throated thrush." He said, "Your father doesn't teach you anything." But my father had already taught me about the names of birds. Once we walked, and he said, "That is a brown-throated thrush. In German it is called the Pfleegel flügel. In Chinese it is called Keewontong. In Japanese a Towhatowharra, and so on. And when you know all the names of that bird in every language, you know nothing, but absolutely nothing, about the bird." And then we would go on and talk about the pecking and the feathers. So I had learned already that names don't constitute knowledge. Of course that has caused me a certain amount of trouble since because I refuse to learn the name of anything. So when someone comes in and says, "Have you got any explanation for the Fitch-Cronin experiment?" I say, "What's that?" And he says, "You know – that long-lived k meson that disintegrates into two pi's." "Oh, yes, now I know." I never know the names of things. What my father forgot to tell me was that knowing the names of things was useful if you want to talk to somebody else – so you can tell them what you are talking about. The basic principle of knowing about something rather than just knowing its name is something that you have stuck to, isn't it? Yes, of course. We have to learn that these are the kinds of disciplines in the field of science that you have to learn – to know when you know and when you don't know, and what it is you know and what it is you don't know. You've go to be very careful not to confuse yourself.
Although it makes no sense to say that I am in pain but I do not know it or I am not conscious that I am in pain, that I do not know that I am in pain is a grammatical claim. I think you are reaching into the wrong issue.
Something that does not think cannot be deceived, and only something that can think can doubt. I cannot be deceived about or doubt that I exist unless I am a thing that thinks.
@frank started a thread a few months ago https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14302/descartes-reading-group/p1. What Descartes means by thinking and the significance of his claim were discussed. From the Second Meditation:
The use of the words, doubt, know, believe, being conscious, all have correct and incorrect grammatical uses within certain contexts or forms of life; so they provide certain constraints on what can be said reasonable or rationally. And of course "...I do not know that I am in pain is a grammatical claim," so I'm not sure of your point.
Quoting Fooloso4
Why would you think that my point conflicts with these obvious ideas? My point is that in terms of what I can know, it doesn't make sense (and you seem to agree) that I know that I am in pain, and in a similar vain, it also doesn't make sense to claim "I think, therefore I am." which is also a knowledge claim of a similar type. It's not as though I can arrive at these conclusions outside the grammar of the language-games in which they occur. There is no internal language-game (as per the private language argument) that allows me to do this. Descartes, I would contend is doing just this. He starts by doubting everything, which is nonsense from the start. He creates his own private conceptual scheme and proceeds from there.
The point is, it does not reach into the issue of consciousness itself. What is at issue here is not what is at issue for Descartes.
Quoting Sam26
The point is, it is not a matter of what I can and cannot know.
Quoting Sam26
Right, quite the opposite, Descartes' is a daring political language-game addressed to those who are capable of thinking for themselves. It is rhetorical. How can he call into question the authority of the Church and "the philosopher" without suffering the same fate as Galileo? He does this by pretending to call everything into question. His meditations are not internal or private. After all, he is writing to be read. It is from beginning to end public.
Someone does seem to be confused. Taking things out of context can often lead to confusion.
But this thread is not the place to discuss Descartes. To do so reasonable and responsibly would require reading him carefully, but since you are not a fan, that is not likely to happen.
Feynman perhaps misses that there is a difference between the brown-throated thrush and the brown thrasher, for which it is often mistaken. To know the name of the bird is to be able to distinguish it from other birds.
At some place – Early in PI, I think – Wittgenstein makes the point that naming is like putting the pieces on the board before a game. It's not making a move in the game; but it must be done in order to play. But part of the language game of ornithology is distinguishing different bird types by their features. Being able to name different birds is making moves in the game of ornithology.
(edited) The relevance is in showing how the section around §242 is a lead in to the private language argument.
Given that, whatever pull the Cogito has must come from it's positioning within the games we play - as points out Descartes does in the Second Meditation.
While Fooloso4 and might disagree on the usefulness of the Cogito, they seem to agree that it doesn't make sense to say that I know I am conscious.
And it makes no sense for you to doubt that you are conscious.
And that's the core of the Cogito, and why it is useful.
So for example. One problem in philosophy is whether time, space, causality, are external or in the mind. Kant said it was the mind's conditions that allow for these things (transcendental) and thus not external. Cool, so Kant had a theory that tried to explain things..
So how would early and later Wittgenstein deal with this problem? Or if he wouldn't, how would he go about critiquing Kant? These are the kind of things that reveal the cache value of Wittgenstein's work.
Only another 692 paragraphs in Part I to go through after we have agreed PI 246.
Wittgenstein is un-bolded, the interlocuter is bolded.
Regarding "It can’t be said of me at all (except perhaps as a joke) that I know I’m in pain. What is it supposed to mean"
I have had difficulty with this part of the paragraph.
Translating into my own words, I believe that this means that I would be joking if I said that I know I am in pain.
As you wrote "While @Fooloso4 and @Sam26 might disagree on the usefulness of the Cogito, they seem to agree that it doesn't make sense to say that I know I am conscious.", it must surely follow that if it doesn't make sense to say that I know I am conscious, then it also cannot make sense to say that I know I am in pain.
As we seem to agree that it wouldn't be sensible to say that I know I am in pain, this suggests that this is Wittgenstein's opinion.
Regarding "except perhaps that I am in pain?"
Translating into my own words, I believe that this means I would be joking if I said that I know I'm in pain because this means no more than I am in pain
As we seem to agree that it wouldn't be a sensible thing to say that I know I am in pain because this means no more than I am in pain, this suggests that this also is Wittgenstein's position.
Yes, to know the name of a bird allows one to be able to distinguish it from other birds, and to know the name of a chess piece allows one to distinguish the Queen from the King.
But as you say "Naming is not yet a move in a language-game". A piece is named, but what exactly is being named. Is it the form, that a piece has a rounded crown, or is it the content, that the piece can move any number of squares in any direction.
Similarly in the expression "he is in pain". What exactly is being named, the form, the pain behaviour, the crying, or the content, the private sensation of pain, the beetle in the box?
I agree when you say "And the upshot of that is that it is improper to talk of representing our own pains and pleasures. "I have a pain in my hand" is not like "I have an iPhone in my hand"; it is more like "Ouch!""
IE, in language, it seems that the form is being named, not the content of the form.
Why need there be a something that is being named?
What does "Ouch!" name?
Quoting RussellA
Perhaps the game is not one of naming at all.
Wittgenstein and the Cartesian problem
Wittgenstein asks how words refer to sensations. His interlocutor asks if the word "ouch!" is describing the other's pain, Wittgenstein say no, the word "ouch!" is replacing the pain behaviour, and neither describing the pain behaviour nor the other's pain.
PI 244: How do words refer to sensations?....................."So you are saying that the word 'pain' really means crying?"—On the contrary: the verbal expression of pain replaces crying and does not describe it.
We can only know about someone else's private sensations from their outward behaviour. For example, knowing that they are in pain because of their pain behaviour, such as exclaiming "ouch!". However, even that may be misleading, as they may not be in pain whilst still exhibiting pain behaviour, or they may be in pain and not exhibit any pain behaviour or even that they may be having the private sensation of pleasure whilst exhibiting pain behaviour
PI 304 "But you will surely admit that there is a difference between pain-behaviour accompanied by pain and pain-behaviour without any pain?"—Admit it?
Accepting that the word "ouch!" replaces pain behaviour, we could generalise and say that words replace physical things in the world. The word "ouch!" replaces pain behaviour, the word "table" replaces tables. But it is more complicated than that. Neither an ouch! nor a table are platonic forms existing independently in the world. They only exist in the mind as concepts. As concepts, they have no single essence, they don't stand for objects, but rather refer to a set of different things that share some undefinable commonality, some family resemblance.
Concepts and words are similar as forms of language. From the SEP article on Concepts[i], [/i]concepts are psychological entities existing in the mind, enabling thought within an internal system of representation and having a language-like syntax and compositional semantics. Wittgenstein presented the argument that language must be rule-governed, and as rules cannot be private, they must be publicly grounded. Words, being part of the language game, must therefore depend on their meaning on a language-speaking community external to any individual. Wittgenstein makes the Private Language Argument from PI 243 onwards.
Wittgenstein and an argument against solipsism
1) Concepts don't exist in the world as platonic forms, but only in the mind.
2) As Wittgenstein presents an argument against a private language, the meaning of words must be grounded outside the mind in the public sphere.
3) Wittgenstein wrote in Tractatus para 4 that A thought is a proposition with a sense, meaning that thoughts are sentences in the head, thereby linking concepts in the mind with words in a world of language users.
4) If thoughts exist inside the mind and language exists outside the mind, then if thoughts are language, then this is presenting an argument against Cartesianism and against Descartes' solipsism of the separation of mind and body.
Why need there be a something that is being named?
Words cannot replace something that cannot be observed in the world. As described in the beetle in the box analogy in PI 293, words cannot replace unobservable things such as love, beauty, pain, unicorns, but can replace observable behaviour that has been caused by such unobservable behaviour. The private sensation of pain does have real world consequences, and it is these real world consequences that are named. As private sensations are unobservable, then if there was nothing in the world to observe, there would be nothing to name.
Can nothing be named? I could invent the word "ajuhgte", but if it wasn't replacing something in the world, the word would be meaningless.
What does "Ouch!" name?
The word "ouch!" replaces a set of particular observed behaviours in the world having certain undefinable resemblances to each other. If naming is defined as replacing, then the word "ouch!" names a set of particular observed behaviours in the world having certain undefinable resemblances to each other.
Perhaps the game is not one of naming at all.
In the language game are words, where a particular word replaces a set of different things in the world having certain undefinable resemblances to each other. If "naming" is defined as replacing, then the language game must be that of naming.
"Ouch!" is not a name for some group of behaviours. It is a behaviour.
"The word "ouch!" and behaviour
As Wittgenstein describes, the word "ouch!" replaces a person's particular behaviour. But isn't it the case that the word "ouch!" is not a behaviour, but replaces a behaviour ?
PI 244: How do words refer to sensations?....................."So you are saying that the word 'pain' really means crying?"—On the contrary: the verbal expression of pain replaces crying and does not describe it.
The word "ouch!" and naming.
Wittgenstein says that there is a strange connection between a word and an object
PI 38 - Naming appears as a queer connexion of a word with an object
But some words are clearly not the names of objects, such as the word "ouch!"
PI 27 Think of exclamations alone.......Water!, Away!, !Ow.......Are you inclined still to call these words "names of objects"
So what is the thing that the label is attached to. It cannot be the object, because as Wittgenstein says, if humans showed no outward sign of their inner sensations, showed no behaviour, then the language game would be impossible.
PI 257 - What would it be like if human beings shewed no outward signs of pain (did not groan, grimace, etc.)? Then it would be impossible to teach a child the use of the word 'tooth-ache'."
As regards naming, Wittgenstein says that "naming" means "attaching a label to a thing ". As "naming" also means attaching a word to a thing, then words are labels.
PI 15 - It will often prove useful in philosophy to say to ourselves: naming something is like attaching a label to a thing.
For Wittgenstein:
1) The word "ouch!" replaces a behaviour.
2) Naming means attaching the word "ouch!" to a behaviour, ie, the word "ouch!" names a behaviour.
3) Therefore, "attaching" a word to a behaviour means "replacing" a behaviour by a word.
This is not what Wittgenstein is saying. “Ouch” is an expression of pain, not naming the behaviors that commonly associated with pain. If my arm is stabbed, I do not grab my arm and look at my face wincing in a mirror and say “that behavior is ‘Ouch’. Alternately, I may just say “Ouch” without any of the pain behaviors, or the behavior varies from event to event.
Also from §38: "— If you don’t want to produce confusion, then it is best not to say that these words name anything".
Naming things is just one way in which words can be used, one sort of language game among many. There are others. Talk of pain has a superficial resemblance to talk of objects, "I have an iPhone in my hand" looks very much like "I have a pain in my hand". But Wittgenstein is showing that the game being played in each case is very different. The pain is not open for inspection in the way that the iPhone is.
This leads some to speculate that the pain is a private thing, an invisible object known only to the person in pain. This is the view Wittgenstein is rejecting.
But Wittgenstein is not providing us with an alternative. He's not saying pain is not this sort of thing, it's that sort of thing; he's saying rather that it's not a thing at all. Any more than there is a thing named by "ouch!".
This line of thinking broadens into what was subsequently called the Private Language Argument. In a way it is a pity this happened, since subsequently folk tend to treat the the sections from §244 - §271 as discreet, when they are part of this extended discussion.
My arm is stabbed, I feel pain, and involuntarily my face winces. If I don't know the English language, I cannot say "ouch!". The only way an observer can know the possibility of my internal sensation is from my behaviour, my face wincing.
When learning the English language, I am taught that the word "Ouch!" is attached to the behaviour of a wincing face. Replacing the behaviour of a wincing face by the word "ouch!" then allows me to take part in the language game. As you say "I may just say "ouch!" without any of the pain behaviour."
PI 257 - "What would it be like if human beings shewed no outward signs of pain (did not groan, grimace, etc.)? Then it would be impossible to teach a child the use of the word 'tooth-ache'."
Before learning the English language, I can express my pain through a wincing face. After learning the English language, I can express my pain not only through a wincing face but also by saying "ouch!". In that sense, one can rightly say that "ouch!" is an expression of pain.
"Ouch!" is a name in the language game. As a name, it names something. As shown by the beetle in the box analogy, it cannot name the sensation, but can only name the behaviour, as described in PI 257. "Ouch!" can only name the behaviour.
As Wittgenstein said in PI 304 "Naming appears as a queer connexion of a word with an object."
A name can only name something known, something that can be directly observed. A name cannot name something that is unknown, something that cannot be directly observed.
Richard Floyd in The Private Language Argument argues that it is not the case that Wittgenstein is saying that there are no private sensations, only that such sensations are unknown to outside observers.
PI 304 Not at all. It is not a something., but not a nothing either!
As a table is a public object, it can be named within the language game. As the sensation of pain is private, it cannot be named within the language game, but what can be named within the language game is pain behaviour, the effect rather than the cause, such as a face that winces.
But what about the unicorn. How can unicorns be named, when unicorns don't exist in the world. The Oxford Dictionary defines a unicorn as "a mythical animal typically represented as a horse with a single straight horn projecting from its forehead".
As Wittgenstein establishes, the word "pain" describes neither the private sensation of pain not the pain behaviour but replaces the pain behaviour. Similarly, the word "unicorn" describes neither something existing in the world nor is described by its definition "a mythical animal typically represented as a horse with a single straight horn projecting from its forehead", but replaces the words "a mythical animal typically represented as a horse with a single straight horn projecting from its forehead".
PI 244 - On the contrary: the verbal expression of pain replaces crying and does not describe it
"Unicorns" exist as a replacement to the set of words ""a mythical animal typically represented as a horse with a single straight horn projecting from its forehead".
Therefore:
1) The word "iPhone" replaces an object that can be directly observed
2) The word "pain" replaces a pain behaviour that can be directly observed.
3) The word "unicorn" replaces the set of words ""a mythical animal typically represented as a horse with a single straight horn projecting from its forehead" that can be directly observed.
What behaviour does it name?
"Ouch" is not the name of a behaviour; it is an expression of pain. One does not name anyone's pain as "ouch". One says "ouch" when they are in pain; to express their pain. As you note, the behaviour of saying "ouch" replaces the behaviour of wincing. However, that does not mean that "ouch" is a synonym for "wince". Wincing is the name of a behaviour, but "ouching" is not.
"Wince" is the name of an expression of pain, whereas (to say) "ouch" is an expression of pain. Wincing and saying "ouch" are both behaviours that express pain. "Ouch" is not the name of an expression of pain. Saying "ouch" is an expression of pain.
I agree with the second part, as I wrote before "In that sense one can rightly say that "ouch!" is an expression of pain."
However, I'm not sure about the first part.
If I want to communicate to someone who can see me that I am in pain, I can wince. If I want to communicate to someone who cannot see me that I am in pain, I can say "ouch!"
A word such as "ouch!" can replace a behaviour such as wincing.
PI 244 - On the contrary: the verbal expression of pain replaces crying and does not describe it
If a word can replace something, then it names that something. For example, as the word "table" can replace the words " a piece of furniture with a flat top and one or more legs, providing a level surface for eating, writing, or working at", then "table is the name for a piece of furniture with a flat top and one or more legs, providing a level surface for eating, writing, or working at".
Similarly, as "ouch!" can replace a particular behaviour, then "ouch!" names that particular behaviour.
Quoting Luke
From Wittgenstein's Beetle in the Box analogy PI 293, the word "pain" in the language game cannot refer to any private sensation of pain, as any private sensation of pain drops out of consideration in the language game. This means that the word "pain" can only refer to the pain behaviour, either the act of wincing or saying "ouch!"
The act of wincing and saying "ouch!" are both pain behaviours.
I would agree that the act of saying "ouch" names a behaviour, but I would not agree that the word "ouch" names a behaviour.
I agree that the word "ouch" has to be in context. It could be the Organisation for the Understanding of Cluster Headache, a BBC website reflecting the lives and experiences of disabled people, a term in the dictionary or a speech act from someone having a rock dropped on their foot. As Wittgenstein said "The question is: "In what sort of context does it occur?"
As W says at 15: “naming something is rather like attaching a name tag to a thing.”
“Ouch” isn’t the name of anything; it’s what you say when you hurt yourself.
Well, first, Kudos to you for your persistence. These are not easy ideas, and it is pleasing to see someone who is determined to work through an extensive argument rather than accept a YouTube video as gospel, as is so common in these threads.
Next, it's not clear to me where, if at all, we are disagreeing. You quote Wittgenstein, to my ear as if you were countering some of what I have claimed, and yet the bits you quote support my contention.
So to repeat what might be the one fundamental problem underpinning your misinterpretation of Wittgenstein. Words are not all just the names of things. That this is the case is set out in the first 40 or so sections of PI, where Wittgenstein enjoins us not to think, but to look, and so to move from our dogmatically accepted view that words stand for things and instead look at what we actually do with words, in particular cases.
So "Ouch!" is not the name of a pain, nor the name of a behaviour, nor the name of anything else; it is instead something we do with a word.
Consider some more examples:
"Hello."
"Good Bye."
"Fire!"
"Look out!"
"Charge!"
"Please don't!"
These do not name; they are performances. A greeting, a farewell, a command, a warning, a plea. Things we do with words.
Wittgenstein is at great pains to insist that we not look for the meaning of a word, as given by the thing named, but instead that we start to look at what is being done with those words, by way of starting to look at their use.
It was, one way or another, the realisation that so much of our language does not fit into the simple predicate-name formulae of the Tractatus that brought him out of the wilderness to work on the PI.
Now it seems that you are clinging to the idea that words all refer to something; that they are all ultimately analysable as nouns. If this is so, then you will not be able to grok the argument of the PI, and there is little progress that can be made.
So, do you agree that we do other things with words besides name things? That it is better to look for the meaning of our utterances in what we do with them than to look for what they name?
Because until you see this, there is no way you can follow Philosophical Investigations.
Quoting RussellA
I think Norman Malcolm in "Turning to Stone" helps clarify what is being discuss here. He says:
"Wittgenstein's argument has established that there is an essential connection between the meaning of first-person psychological language and the primitive expression of fear, anger, pain, in human behavior. But how does this connection make its appearance in the teaching of language? Wittgenstein puts the question like this: 'How does a human being learn the meaning of the names of sensations?-of the word "pain" for example"(PI 244). In a familiar passage he suggests what seems to be the only possibility:
Words are connected with the primitive, the natural, expression of the sensation and put I'm their place. A child has hurt himself and cries; and now the grown-ups talk to him and teach him exclamations and, later, sentences. They teach the child new pain-behavior.
'So you are saying that the word "pain" really means crying?' On the contrary, the verbal expression of pain replaces crying and does not describe it (PI 244)
The suggestion does not mean that adults get the child to identify sensation of his as pain. This would only reintroduce the untenable notion of 'inner ostensive definition'. Nor does the suggestion mean that the word 'pain' stands for or refers to crying-which would be a form of behaviorism. What the suggestion says is that the adults coax the child into replacing his crying with words such as 'hurts' or 'pain'. The crying was a primitive expression of pain. The uttered words, by taking the place of the primitive expression, become an expression of pain. Uttering those words becomes, for the child, a new form of pain-behavior; and for others it serves as a criterion for the child's being in pain."
An English speaker would say "ouch!", an Indonesian speaker would say "aduh!", meaning that exclaiming "ouch!" is not an innate behaviour but is rather learnt as part of a language.
As you point out, a key para is 244 So you are saying that the word 'pain' really means crying?"— On the contrary: the verbal expression of pain replaces crying and does not describe it.
As you say, it makes sense that the word "pain" is a pain behaviour, as crying is a pain behaviour. As Wittgenstein says, the word "pain" replaces crying rather than describe it.
The child is aware of its inner sensation of pain and outer instinctive behaviour of crying. The child learns that it can replace its crying by the word "pain". The child has learnt the rule that it can replace its particular behaviour by a particular word.
The problem is, as the tortoise said to Achilles, where is the rule that there are rules. How did the child learn the rule that its particular behaviour can be replaced by a particular word?
You say "Nor does the suggestion mean that the word 'pain' stands for or refers to crying-which would be a form of behaviourism."
If the child didn't discover the rule that there are rules through behaviourism, then how does the child know to follow the rules?
I've been addressing your mistaken belief that:
Quoting RussellA
Therefore, I don't see how your response about learning language is relevant.
Which comes first, knowing the meaning of a word and then understanding the sentence it is in or learning the meaning of a word from the sentence it is in in order to understand the sentence. It cannot be the latter. First, we must know the meaning of a word before being able to use it. Wittgenstein says that the naming of words comes before using them.
PI 26: To repeat—naming is something like attaching a label to a thing. One can say that this is preparatory to the use of a word. But what is it a preparation for?
Wittgenstein writes that in language, words don't just refer to objects.
PI 27: Think of exclamations alone, with their completely different functions. Water! Away! Ow! Help! Fine! No! Are you inclined still to call these words "names of objects"?
Some words we can learn the meaning of as they are the names of objects, such as "stones".
PI 7 . In the practice of the use of language (2) one party calls out the words, the other acts on them. In instruction in the language the following process will occur: the learner names the objects; that is, he utters the word when the teacher points to the stone.—And there will be this still simpler exercise: the pupil repeats the words after the teacher——both of these being processes resembling language.
We can learn the meaning of words such as "ouch!", which are not the names of objects, by being taught that they can replace particular pain behaviour.
PI 244 A child has hurt himself and he cries; and then adults talk to him and teach him exclamations and, later, sentences. They teach the child new pain-behaviour. "So you are saying that the word 'pain' really means crying?"— On the contrary: the verbal expression of pain replaces crying and does not describe it.
If a word can replace something, then it names that something. For example, as the word "table" can replace the words " a piece of furniture with a flat top and one or more legs, providing a level surface for eating, writing, or working at", then "table is the name for a piece of furniture with a flat top and one or more legs, providing a level surface for eating, writing, or working at". As "ouch!" can replace a pain behaviour, then "ouch!" names that pain behaviour.
Do words name things? An object is a "thing". I suppose it depends on whether one can call a pain behaviour a "thing". A pain behaviour is something, but is it a "thing"?
Saying "ouch!" is not an involuntary act such as wincing, but rather a cognitive act as part of a language game requiring conscious thought intended to communicate a private sensation to others.
If not naming the pain behaviour directly and the private sensation indirectly, then what purpose does the word "ouch!" have in the language game?
As I've already told you: saying "ouch" doesn't name pain behaviour; saying "ouch" is pain behaviour.
To say that "ouch" names a pain behaviour is to treat it as though it were a verb, such as "wincing". You don't (typically) describe a person as ouching. A person uses the word "ouch" to express their pain. The word "ouch" is not used as a name or as a description of anyone's behaviour.
If I stub my toe I may say "ouch" even if no one else is around to hear me. Certainly this is not intended to communicate a private sensation to others or to myself.
I didn't properly answer your question.
It seems that the PI is making the case that god in the atheist's language game means something different to god in the Christian's language game. Neither meaning is either right or wrong, as long as each language game is coherent within itself. The word god doesn't represent a fact in the world, doesn't name something in the world, but has a meaning dependent on its context within a particular language game.
PI 43 - For a large class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word "meaning" it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language.
The meaning of god in the atheist's language game is how it is used in that language game. The meaning of god in the Christian's language game is how it is used in that language game. So it is true that the meaning of a particular word, such as god, depends on which language game it is being used within
However, within a particular language game, which comes first, i) knowing the meaning of a word and then understanding the sentence it is in, or ii) learning the meaning of a word from the sentence it is in in order to understand the sentence.
It cannot be ii), therefore it must be i). The nature of the language game can only be known after the meaning of a set of words has been fixed, rather than the meaning of the set of words within a language game have been fixed by the language game.
PI 26: To repeat—naming is something like attaching a label to a thing. One can say that this is preparatory to the use of a word. But what is it a preparation for?
Doesn't this mean that the nature of the language game has already been determined by an a priori choice of words that happen to be used in that language game rather than the meaning of a word is how it is used in the language game ?
Then why did you say the word ?
"House" as a noun names a building for human habitation. "Ouch!" as a noun names a pain behaviour.
PI 26: To repeat—naming is something like attaching a label to a thing.
Because it hurt. I could have said some other things or let out an inarticulate exclamation.
Implicit in this is a false dichotomy: that there is a difference between knowing the meaning of the word and knowing how to use the word.
If someone were to use a given word appropriately in every case, on what grounds could you claim: "Yes, but they do not know what it means."
Quoting RussellA
Not at all. It only means that this game is played. We enter into a community that already plays various language games – see §27, where Wittgenstein points out that naming is already participating in a language game. Subsequent sections show how much is already taken as granted in order for one to participate in the game of naming.
Quoting RussellA
And you still haven't. However it is clear that you have not seen how to replace thinking in terms of meaning with thinking in terms of use, and are still attempting to get at meaning by looking at use while treating these as distinct things. We can proceed instead by dropping talk of meaning and instead looking only to use.
And this is where you have plateaued.
Use it in a sentence.
On what grounds would you say they do know what it means? I mean, there's a possible world where a parrot uses "peanut" correctly every time. Does it know what "peanut" means? I'd say no.
In other words, the expectation that your fellow humans have linguistic capability is part of the assessment. That's part of the grounds.
Yep.
So a computer or parrot always uses the word correctly without knowing what the word means. I guess that makes me wonder what the special human magic is that renders them knowing. Hmm.
Language games are not restricted only to language use. We are embedded in them in all our day-to-day activities.
The interesting case might be, say, ChatGPT, which apparently uses words correctly just on the basis of a large scale statistical analysis. And yes, I am incline to say that ChatGPT does not participate in the world to the degree requisite to say that it understands the words it uses. It lacks the "magic" if you like.
Wittgenstein's approach is not unproblematic.
I get that. That seems to suggest that there's a certain potential associated with humans, the potential to live out a form of life that involves meaning. That way a baby can know the meaning of "peanut" pretty much the same way a peanut farmer does. The farmer's associations with the word are vast and visceral compared to the baby's, but there is some common ground, as you say, arising from what we are. Do you agree with that? That the baby and farmer mean the same thing by "peanut"?
Yep. That "potential" is usually thought of as "intention", and hence Anscombe's interest in that topic.
Quoting frank
:cool: And what is the purpose of this question - what is it's use? Let's look at it as Wittgenstein might, by checking the use rather than the meaning; so instead let's ask "Do the baby and the farmer use 'peanut' in the same way?".
And I hope it is clear that the answer is "No."
Ask yourself: what makes it possible, what has to be the case, what would we judge as necessary or sufficient in order to claim that you know what you are saying? The answer are the criteria that matter to us (what is meaningful in this case). To say you know what is meaningful in having said something is to be aware and cognizant of, or at least experienced with, the consequences you are getting yourself into, the implications that can be drawn, what else might have been said in this situation (a threat rather than an apology), etc. Take the case where we would say “They don’t know what they are saying.” The person’s words need not be “incorrect”, nor “misused”.
Quoting frank
“Meaning” is not attached to words (other than naming, in a sense) to be used (as in operated) “correctly”. There are concepts (activities) like naming and regurgitating, synthesizing, paraphrasing, arguing, supporting, etc. And there are “uses” of those concepts: sometimes different senses, like knowing has; and sometimes just in different situations. What determines what use, is whether and how the criteria of that particular use are ordinarily met in a particular context, even something that is or can be two things at once, like a request that is also a joke. We do not make these things happen (with exceptions), we judge them to be the case.
A parrot saying “Polly wants a cracker” knows how to get a cracker, which is knowledge in the sense of (in its use as) knowing how something works, and it might even mean (as in correspond with, name) that the bird is hungry (even that it is an expression of its desire). But it is not a request; not because of the lack of something (magic, intention), but just that birds can’t meet the requirement of asking something of another (though the concept stretches when we look at some of their dances) because they cannot acknowledge (or ignore) the debt of it. And a parrot having said that also fits into the category of humor, but we wouldn’t say the bird is joking because part of humor is the self-knowledge of the implications and consequences of saying something across form or in the wrong context, which awareness and reflection etc. are only possible in humans (expected of), which is also part of how and why a request coming from a bird is funny. A person can also be unaware though, but then it is foolish, or unwitting; so nonetheless funny, only in a different sense (use).
Quoting Banno
So if we take away the picture of words being necessarily (always) “used”, as in manipulated or ordered or operated or intended, and so also throw away the measure of “correct”, than we can judge that or whether a computer is copying, quoting, regurgitating, synthesizing, paraphrasing, arguing, supporting, failing, mistaking, etc., which is a richer tapestry and with hope of more interest than just whether a machine is “human”. That ChatGPT is not “participating in the world” is true in the sense that we do not judge it as we would judge a human (the consequences of the plagarism transfer to its user). The words cannot mean what they do to us (even if said correctly) because a computer is not (nor a parrot) responsible for what it says. If a human is unable to face the fallout of their actions, they do not “understand” what they are saying (“the words they use”) because they are ignorant (a child), naive, a buffoon, etc.
If someone can see me, they see a picture of me wincing. If someone cannot see me, and hear me say "ouch!", they can replace the word "ouch!" by a picture of me wincing, ie, the word "ouch!" names the picture of me wincing.
The word "ouch!" names a picture, and a picture is a noun. Therefore, in the sentence "Ouch!", the word "ouch!" is being used as a noun.
“Ouch” is not a name, it is an expression; not like a saying, but like the opposite of being stone-faced. And so wincing is also an expression of pain (they mean the same to us, as in: they have the same implications). Not “a pain” like if you turned the hurt into an object (or a pulse of neurons). Your expression of pain is a release, like a good cry, or it is (to me) a cry for help, a claim on my compassion. These are the ordinary terms upon which we handle pain, what matters about it to us. The desire to name the pain is a desire to be certain of my humanity while avoiding me as a human. To take “what I mean” as an independent thing rather than an obligation to become intelligible to each other.
You said that the word "ouch" is a noun, like the word "house" is a noun.
I asked you for an example of how the word "ouch" might be used in a sentence (as a noun). If I were to ask you for an example of how the word "house" might be used in a sentence (as a noun), you could cite an example such as:
"I live in a very big house."
"This house is made of bricks."
"His house was painted yellow."
"We take our shoes off in this house."
You did not give an example of how the word "ouch" might be used in a sentence. Instead, you said that the word "ouch" is a sentence. Would you likewise say that the word "house" is a sentence? If not, why not?
Could you provide an(other) example of how the word "ouch" might be used in a sentence (as a noun)?
I agree that "ouch!" is an expression, as I wrote before "In that sense one can rightly say that "ouch!" is an expression of pain."
The word "ouch!" replaces a picture. As a noun is a word that refers to a thing, and as a picture also refers to a thing, a picture is a noun. As only a noun can replace a noun, "ouch!" is also a noun.
"Ouch!" is an exclamation, a short sound, word or phrase spoken suddenly to express an emotion. According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, an exclamation is a noun: 1) a sharp or sudden utterance, 2) vehement expression of protest or complaint.
If I go into a corner shop, see people say "I want a cracker" and are given a cracker, then when I want a cracker I know to say "I want a cracker". As Wittgenstein said, meaning is use.
PI 43 For a large class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word "meaning" it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language
But if I went into the corner shop and just said "I", nothing would happen, even though the shopkeeper would know what "I" means. They would see no use in my saying it. Similarly if I just said "want", or just said "a" or just said "cracker", the shopkeeper would know the meaning of each word, but would see no use in my saying these words. Only the complete sentence "I want a cracker" not only has meaning but also a use.
If a parrot walked into a corner shop and spoke "I want a cracker", the shopkeeper would do nothing as they know the parrot is not aware of the language game.
A child may see in a corner shop people saying "I want a cracker" and being given a cracker. On returning home, the child may say to its parents "I want a cracker". On not being given a cracker, then discovers that its parents are playing a different language game. Only by trial and error the child may discover that they will only be given a cracker when saying "Please I want a cracker", thereby successfully becoming part of its parents' language game.
I can understand that a sentence has both meaning and use, but isn't it the case that a single word may have a meaning but no use?
Quoting Banno
It could well be that as the child grows up, it may decide that the word "please" is a symbol of a military industrial complex that squashes the democratic rights of the proletariat, and decides that the the word "please" should therefore be banned from use. In changing the meaning of the word "please", it has instantly created a new language game, even if they are the only person who has such a belief. In effect, they have created a private language game.
Isn't a language game used by only one person a private language game?
I said that "Ouch!" is a sentence, not that "ouch" is a sentence.
The word "ouch!" is an exclamation, and according to the University of Sussex, an exclamation can be a sentence.
I don't disagree that "Ouch!" is a sentence. What I disagree with is your assertion that "ouch" is a noun and/or the name of a behaviour. Given your assertion that "ouch" is a noun, I asked you to use it in a sentence as a noun.
Quoting RussellA
I agree that "ouch" is an exclamation. This is what any dictionary tells us. However, the dictionary does not say that "ouch" is a noun. I have asked you for an example of using "ouch" in a sentence as a noun to support your assertion and to demonstrate that "ouch" is a noun.
I am sure that "ouch!" is a noun and/or the name of a behaviour. If somewhere along the line I wrote "ouch", without the exclamation mark, this was a mistyping.
What do humans have that birds don't have, which allows them to "acknowledge the debt of it."?
Beware the homunculus problem, which is like sweeping something under a rug.
It is neither.
It is the exclamation itself that is a noun, as an event, not as a name for (referent for) “the pain” (some object inside us). And the word is not a replacement for a “picture” (whatever we would imagine when we hear it I suppose you to mean); it is a replacement for the wordless expression, the wince, the cry, the clear attempt at repression, etc.
This way of looking at pain as word-object is created to avoid the real way pain matters between me and to you (how it works)—that it is I that is in pain (I am the one; I don’t know pain, I have it) and you either acknowledge me (say, come to my aid) or ignore me, reject me (say I’m faking). The theoretical approach to other minds (of which pain is just an example) is to attempt to get around the opacity of the other, the truth that I may not know because I cannot be certain of the other.
We have the practices of obligation, asking a favor, duty, betrayal, insincerity, etc. which come into play between triggering a response and making a request; the differentiation between them is, we could say, part of the difference between an animal and a human.
So just form of life. That's as good an answer as any.
The parrot might have an intent to elicit a peanut, so yes, that seems right. Those requirements are the "form of life", presumably? Good stuff, although I don't follow the overall argument.
"Ouch!"; "Hello"; "Fire!".
No.
Well, what I am saying is not an “answer”, nor is it one of any, say, foundations, or however “form of life” is thought to play a part. Our relation to the other (their pain) is a fact of the human condition. We (philosophy, historically) want to turn the other into an intellectual problem, a lack of certainty, but the other is just separate from us, and knowledge is not our only relation to the world (and others). We want the other (their pain, for example) to be an object of knowledge to avoid responding to the fact of: them; that we cannot be sure (they are really in pain), that we commit ourselves in relation to the claim of their pain on us, etc. That is how pain works; that is its significance and manner. The picture of “form of life” is only meant to say there is more than one way the world works; more than objects and knowledge, for example. It is not one more justification of a theoretical solution to the truth of our blindness to and possible refusal of the other.
Schopenhauer would argue the compassionate impulse of empathy is the foundation of ethics, in fact. If anything, understanding the language games (of humans and maybe other animals) is the application of this goal. A pat on the belly, a helping hand, a sympathetic ear, a feeding of seeds.
I agree. We were talking about meaning as it relates to normativity. We noted that communication requires more than just using words and sentences correctly. We need intention.
The presumption of “intention” comes from expectations that go along with situations. It is not a constant state of something like deciding or “meaning” that we do. We ask about intention when something unexpected happens: “Did you intend to snub them or were you oblivious?” And this is not asking if you had chosen to be rude (though you can), but to now differentiate. So we “need" implications and consequences and expectations and criteria for judging when something is the case or not, etc., and these are all here before anything is said. This is how motive can be inferred from circumstances, which is not guessing at something going on in another’s head.
Ok. I'm not sure how that relates, but it all sounds good.
Quoting Banno
"Ouch!" and "fire!" are not single words. As exclamations, they are complete sentences. "Ouch" and "fire" are single words.
If I walked into a room and said "ouch" or "fire", people would look at me with bemusement. If I walked into a room and said" ouch!" or "fire!, people would act, either commiserate with me or start running.
"Ouch" and "fire" as single words have meaning but no use in the language game. "Ouch!" and "fire!" as complete sentences have both meaning and use in the language game.
If I walked into a room and said "no", people would again look at me with bemusement, as the word has meaning but no use.
When walking into a room, the word "hello" is being used as an exclamation, where the exclamation mark is assumed, and as an exclamation is not a single word.
I agree that the exclamation "ouch!" is not a name for the pain inside us, but rather, is the name for an observable pain-behaviour that has been caused by something inside us.
Wittgenstein refers to the difference between pain and pain-behaviour:
PI 281 - "But doesn't what you say come to this: that there is no pain, for example, without pain-behaviour?"
Quoting Antony Nickles
An Indirect Realist would say that the word is a replacement for a picture of the wince or cry. A Direct Realist would say that the word is a replacement for the wince or cry.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Yes, how does an observer know whether when someone is exhibiting pain-behaviour, that they are actually in pain. An actor on the stage may exhibit pain-behaviour without actually experiencing pain.
PI 304 - "But you will surely admit that there is a difference between pain-behaviour accompanied by pain and pain-behaviour without any pain?"—Admit it.
A sentence full of metaphorical meaning. Yet the problem is, how do I actually use such knowledge. I know what you mean, but making practical use of such advice is a lot more difficult. :grin:
Quoting frank
Well, one point is we do not need intention; that it is only an issue when something is unexpected (not incorrect nor not the norm), and intention is judged differently, comes into play in other ways (there are other reasons for explaining what was intended).
Like when AI gives you a kick ass essay on the relationship between Kierkegaard and Regine? It was so good I saved it. That was slightly unexpected, I must say.
Sorry, I just noticed this. I wouldn't make a case for meaning being internal because I don't really know what it means for meaning to have a location or be rooted in a specific place or realm. It's just an aspect of communication. The concept is two-sided: meaning, and meaningless. Maybe a third side would be Wittgenstein's "nonsense"?
Again, Ouch! is not a name for a thing (an object—“something inside us”), it is an expression of my being in pain (an externalization). (This is not to say that we cannot “name our pain”—a headache—but this doesn’t work as a referent to an object but also as an expression to others (though including myself, as other to my repressed self). As Witt says, “In so far as it makes sense to say that my pain is the same as his, it is also possible for us both to have the same pain.” But here it is the saying and the establishment of recognition that matter). And to say pain is “caused by something inside us” is just a physiological fact (firing neurotransmitters, yada yada) that is philosophically unimportant and confusing because it appears to bring up issues of causation and determinism, etc. when what we care about (what matters as evidenced by its workings, its criteria) when we talk about our pain (or don’t care about it) is the person.
Quoting RussellA
It is the interlocutor (not Wittgenstein) that is asking a question based on their desire to separate pain and the expression of pain (see #245). They are trying to force Wittgenstein into admitting a behavioral conclusion that without expression there is no pain. Keep in mind, the example here of pain is used for its unmistakability, but it is analogous for the other in their entirety. To keep the pain theirs (as in unique) is to want to keep the picture that they are innately individual, to have certainty of themselves, and the desire to be unknowable to others (or to be fully known in “knowing” and communicating what they take as a definite personal object, “my pain”). But the way pain works is not in my knowing my pain, it is in my having my pain (#246) which the next line says is part of being human—that what is important to us about pain is ordinarily not mine different than yours**, but me separate from you (that it is me that is in pain), and that bridging that gap is not a matter of knowledge of your individual pain, but my reacting to you having pain, your being in pain.
(You seem to be misreading this I believe because you are trying to force as essential the physical nature of pain and are taking this out of context and possibly without understanding the role of the interlocutor (the second voice Wittgenstein uses to speak the assumptions of traditional philosophy). It might help to realize that Wittgenstein is asking questions to get you to reflect on your assumptions and desires; and so you should spend the time to really try to find an answer that reveals something revelatory (say, in #278 & 280)).
Quoting RussellA
Wittgenstein is trying to get us to see that both of those misunderstand how we handle pain, what is important to us about it. His point is that the word (a description, etc.) are expressions, just like a cry is an expression, different entirely from a referent to an object (“reality”).
Quoting RussellA
Of course we can exhibit pain behavior and not be in pain. That is the uncertainty of the other that makes us want to circumvent them through just having knowledge (certainty) of them; it’s also why we want to know ourselves—have it be impossible not to be known to ourselves—because we can be in pain and not be aware of it at all (suppression being the opposite of expression). But as Wittgenstein points out, the way our lives work, we don’t know another’s pain. “If I see someone writhing in pain with evident cause I do not think: all the same, his feelings are hidden from me.” P. 225. We react to them (or ignore them), accept or reject them (even because of faking it).
**And of course I have personal experiences (alone seeing a unique sunset) and sensations, but the points Wittgenstein makes are that our language and ability to express ourselves have a shared depth and so possibility of reaching all the way into each other, across the panic from our separation; that we have a fantasy that we can’t fail to know ourselves, a desire to be unknowable to others, and a (rightful) fear that there is nothing more to us than anyone else.
To address any metaphysical sense, the bird (or anyone) would not have an “intent”, and because it is a bird, it would not intend (in the sense of deliberately decide), but we could ask (it is part of the grammar of intention) whether the bird was asking for a cracker because it was hungry, in other words, whether it wanted a cracker, and the owner might know its behavior well enough to tell when it was hungry and when it is merely saying it, or saying it, maybe, to get attention.
The practice of requesting is different than a demand (which is more what the bird is doing) because it implies that I understand I am asking a favor, that my desires are contingent on you, that I should couch my request in order not to meet the possibility of denial, that I have no authority over your actions, that I can suggest reasons (an emotional pitch, say from a dog, is begging). All of this is philosophical evidence of the difference between the bird and the human that is more than what is normally reduced to the physical differences of animals and humans, e.g., they don’t use language, they aren’t self-conscious, etc. All of that is to say that there are more ways that the world works than: intending actions or referring to objects.
Hmm. I think I'm still missing your point.
Following Anscombe, which I take as being as close as we might get to how Wittgenstein might have dealt with intent, the Parrot's action can be spoken of as intentional under a certain description... "Oh, he does that when he wants his bowl filled". There is no metaphysics here, just as with pain. The intent is part of the way we explain actions with reasons – I'm baulking at calling it a 'causal' explanation because of the baggage therein – and is not naming things in the world.
I think we agree on this.
Yes. I would only add that we don’t normally (in anticipated contexts) explain actions, and it is not necessary or even possible to always explain—an ordinary context would never necessitate asking “Why are you stopping at the light because it is red?”, and we might not be able to imagine one (even an imaginary one; though, of course, now that I say that, maybe someone learning who has never been in modern civilization). The point being that talk of intention is situational (and, as Banno says, not metaphysical, i.e., part of meaning or all action); in Banno’s example—"Oh, he does that when he wants his bowl filled"—the intention, or reason, must be explained, say: in response to my curiosity at the animal’s, perhaps, inexplicably pawing at the air, or any other action which is, as Austin would put it, “fishy”, or, as I put it to @frank, unexpected, or abnormal (our lives are what is normative Cavell says). Expected, appropriate actions in ordinary situations would not and do not have reasons, and I would be stumped how to answer if you asked for one (though I may have subterfuge at heart in “acting” normal; but the exception proves the rule).
All that to say that traditional philosophy wants to place “intention” before action, or tie “meaning” to speaking, in order to have certainty (rationality, control, predictability) so it can remove (by theoretical explanation) the limitations and vagaries of involving a human, an uncertain future, calling for responsiveness and responsibility, perhaps breaking us apart.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Agree. "Ouch!" is a name for an observable behaviour. As pain is not observable, if there was no observable pain behaviour, then there could be no word "pain" in the language game.
PI 304 - "But you will surely admit that there is a difference between pain-behaviour accompanied by pain and pain-behaviour without any pain?"—Admit it?
Quoting Antony Nickles
With this, I disagree. The issues of causation and determinism are important philosophical topics. In the present, there are certain facts in the world. In the past there were different facts in the world. It is a philosophical question to ask why are the facts in the world today are as they are rather than different to what they are. The concepts of causation, determination as well as the Principle of Sufficient Reason may be used to tackle this metaphysical problem.
PI 169: But why do you say that we felt a causal connexion? Causation is surely something established by experiments, by observing a regular concomitance of events for example. So how could I say that I felt something which is established by experiment?
Quoting Antony Nickles
It is clear in PI 281 that it is the interlocutor that is asking"But doesn't what you say come to this: that there is no pain, for example, without pain-behaviour?", but after all, the interlocutor is part of Wittgenstein's imagination, and is putting forward ideas that Wittgenstein considers important. Wittgenstein does conclude that there is a difference between pain and pain behaviour, where he describes that even though the private sensation of pain may drop out of consideration in the language game, pain does not drop out as a private sensation.
PI 304 Not at all. It is not a something., but not a nothing either!
Quoting Antony Nickles
There are two aspects, the private and the public. As regards the private aspect, the thought "know" in "I know I am in pain" is redundant, as this means no more than the thought "I am in pain". As regards the public aspect, the word "know" in "I know I am in pain" isn't redundant, as the expression "I know I am in pain" does have a different meaning to "I am in pain"
PI 246 It can't be said of me at all (except perhaps as a joke) that I know I am in pain. What is it supposed to mean—except perhaps that I am in pain?
Quoting Antony Nickles
Yes, as in PI 293, the Beetle in the Box analogy, the object, the pain, drops out of consideration in the language game.
PI 293: That is to say: if we construe the grammar of the expression of sensation on the model of 'object and designation' the object drops out of consideration as irrelevant.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Yes, we can talk about pain in the language game, even though no one else can know my pain and I cannot know theirs. Wittgenstein is trying to find a means of countering Cartesian solipsism, the separation of mind from world, through language. In part successful, in that the beetle does drop out of consideration in the language game, but in part unsuccessful, in that there still remains the problem that I can still not know another's beetle and they can still not know mine
PI 293 Here it would be quite possible for everyone to have something different in his box.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Yes, you are on the road to answering my previous question. As the tortoise said to Achilles,
where is the rule that we must follow a rule. A child learns the rules of the language game, but how does the child know that there are rules to follow. In Wittgenstein's terms, the answer is in the "primitive", in Chomsky's terms, the answer is in the innate, and in Kant's terms, the answer is in the a priori. Wittgenstein bases his argument against a Private Language in part of the impossibility of developing private language rules, yet the same problem attaches to a language game based on rules. Where is the rule that there are rules.
PI 5: A child uses such primitive forms of language when it learns to talk. Here the teaching of language is not explanation, but training.
Quoting RussellA
The act of “expression” (rather than “observable behavior”) is necessary as it implies that it is of me (reveals me), and pain does not function as “unobservable” but is suppressed (even if I try to hide it, it can be expressed in hiding it; even when nothing is observable, you can know I am in pain by inference from the context). Imagine sadness or guilt (pain is just one example of the problem of the other). And, again, expression is not a “name”. You are confusing all this by hanging onto a certain goal or picture; I suggest you start taking a look at that insistence (the need of that desire). It is the same as the interlocutor’s.
Quoting RussellA
They are important because they embody the confusion Wittgenstein was in during the Tractatus; the interlocutor has the impulsive desire for certainty and “crystalline purity” that Wittgenstein is trying to understand and unravel—this is the point of all of his examples (they are not explanations). You appear to be in the mindset of the interlocutor now (which is an ancient desire of philosophy—and why it wishes it was science). Wittgenstein cannot tell you an answer (a fact or theory), you have to become a different person, see differently.
As an alternative reading, or way of reading, I would suggest Stanley Cavell’s 29-page essay on the availability of the PI, a copy of which I am attaching below, particularly the section on the Style on the page marked 70 and the discussion of his method starting on 62.
Quoting RussellA
I said the fact is philosophically unimportant. The picture of our expression being caused or determined by neurons, even if true, is not relevant to the skepticism of the other. We want science to solve philosophy, but they are like two separate worlds, and what Wittgenstein is doing (his method) is not empiricism or statistics or an experiment. The result is not facts or theories, its to change you.
Let’s try to do the work and answer the question “how could I say [ordinarily, he means] I felt something which is established by experiment?” one answer: “I’m sad”, “why?”, “Because of the neurons firing within me” Also, did you figure out how it is “indeed true that observation of regular concomitances is not the only way we establish causation.”? If you can see for yourself the other ways, then perhaps you might start to see the fact that the picture of internal causation is forced by a desire for a particular outcome. (He is more often asking you to imagine something or being cryptic to force you to see something for yourself—he is not arguing for a conclusion.)
Quoting RussellA
First, “language game” sounds trivial (simplistic). Our language and our lives are the same (usually), and it is not playing a “game” as opposed to some alternative that is more serious, valid. Second, if we can say our pain is the same, we have the same pain. #253 “I have a headache. Me too. No, mine is sharp and behind my ear. Mine too!” Taking out the focus on my difference is to show that the owning is the important part about pain. Part of this process would be to ask yourself why you are fixated on our singularity?
The discussion of a “private” language is not an argument—it’s the examination of a fantasy. One realization of its failure is that our lives are essentially shared; that, yes, it is possible to have a personal even ineffable experience (alone with a sunset), but not always or just because I am me (we could say, our nature is the same; I can feel everything that you feel.) Now you can try to hide your pain (even from yourself), but this is not its being private (unique), but secret. These are the ordinary ways in which pain works; humans have (traditional philosophy has) a reason for wanting to hang onto the uniqueness of our sensations, our selves. Wittgenstein is getting at the motivation for those reasons. Maybe to avoid the responsibility to make ourselves intelligible, to block off the other from our imagined “knowledge of ourself”—so we imagine that it is the nature of humans that comes between us, rather than our choice, our “conviction” p 223. And it is possible (and terrifying) for you to be empty, just a puppet, fake, and, in the face of that fear, we want to stay unique, unknowable, so we look around for a reason, and pick the thing most certain—“our” experience. But all the focus on us is easier to face than the real problem to be accounted for: our lack of knowledge of the other. The desire to enforce a connection between outward and inward in me is actually about our limitation to have knowledge of the other, which shows how we do respond to them (acknowledging them, or not).
Quoting RussellA
So yes, pain is not a “thing” (like color is not), but what he is saying is that it nevertheless is important (thus, not “nothing”); it just matters in different ways; we care (or not) about the pain being “had” by this person; it is that pain is expressed by a person, that it expresses them, that they matter. It is not a matter of knowledge, but interest.
Quoting RussellA
It is not that they are “joking”; it only makes sense as a “joke” (you are to imagine the context in which it is a joke)—we would never otherwise say “I know I am in pain” because pain is not known (other than in the sense of knowing as being sure, as in “I am certain I am in pain and that it’s not indigestion”) Again, I do not know it, I have it; I do not know their pain, I acknowledge it (them). The idea is to take a strange philosophical picture or framework apart by looking at the ordinary ways they are said (this is his method, not that his philosophy is about language), not that there is a better framework, but to find out why we insist on an intellectual picture at all. For instance, if we had “knowledge” of ourself, there would be something specific that would by mine, me, but also something that I could hold in reserve so I could be different, unique, from you. In addition, we would have “certainty” of ourself, control, and an impersonal explanation for your indeterminacy.
Quoting RussellA
Again, pain is not a matter of knowledge (except in its sense of “I know” as “I accept/acknowledge”). Wittgenstein is not “countering” solipsism, but getting at the desire for it, and the desire to “solve” it. One realization is that there are more relations to the world and others than knowledge.
And there is a misunderstanding that Wittgenstein is trying to create a theory of language that is different, or that the solution to skepticism is that the world is language or “language games” or not skeptical because of “forms of life”. He is bringing up examples of what we say, the language we ordinarily use, as a method, to examine philosophy and ourselves. Most notably misread “ Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.” #109 It is not that language is the “means” of our bewitchment, so we just need to clear up language in order not to be bewitched. Language is the means of “battling”, the method by which we battle. He is using the evidence of the historical things we say in situations as a “means” to gain insight into why philosophy abandons our ordinary criteria to impose the singular standard of certainty.
Quoting RussellA
Language does not follow rules; there is no fact that ensures communication. We are not “trained” in rules; it is an osmosis of, an indoctrination into, our culture, including implications, consequences, criteria for judgment, learning from mistakes, being guided, following examples, etc. This is like an apprenticeship, not knowledge to be explained, or workings we are always conscious of, or reasons we always use. Wittgenstein is not looking at rule-following to explain language, it is just one among all the examples of how different things work differently than we’d like. Wanting our world to work like rules has in common with other of his examples the desire for certainty that Wittgenstein is trying to understand why it’s so compelling for humans, for philosophy.
I could say "ouch!" or I could wince, both serve the same function in indicating to others that I am in pain. They cannot know that I am in pain, they can only believe that I am in pain.
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Quoting Antony Nickles
From the Wikipedia article Name, a name identifies something, a referent. A proper name identifies a specific individual human. A common name identifies a person, place or thing.
Wincing is an instinctive behaviour. Saying the word "ouch!" is a cognitive act, and as a cognitive act refers to something. As a part of language that is identifying something, it is a name.
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Quoting Antony Nickles
In PI 281 the interlocutor asks "But doesn't what you say come to this: that there is no pain, for example, without pain-behaviour?"
Yes, this is a simplistic thing to say, in that: i) There can be pain and no pain behaviour, ii) there can be pain with pain behaviour, iii) there can be no pain and no pain behaviour and iv) there can be no pain and pain behaviour
However, Wittgenstein does make the specific statement in PI 304 "Not at all. It is not a something., but not a nothing either!". Even though pain may drop out of consideration in the language game, the pain can still exist within the individual.
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Quoting Antony Nickles
Wittgenstein is doing what any scientist would start by doing, he starts by asking questions:
PI 281 "But doesn't what you say come to this: that there is no pain, for example, without pain-behaviour?"
PI 282 - "But in a fairy tale the pot too can see and hear!" (Certainly; but it can also talk.)
PI 283 - What gives us so much as the idea that living beings, things, can feel?
PI 284 - Look at a stone and imagine it having sensations.—One says to oneself: How could one so much as get the idea of ascribing a sensation to a thing?
The scientist would also start by asking:
What is the universe made of?
How did life begin? ...
Are we alone in the universe? ...
What makes us human? ...
But what Wittgenstein doesn't do is the harder part, trying to discover a theory that gives a coherent answer to all these questions. He is not trying to discover that e = mc2.
Anyone can ask questions, what is more difficult is coming up with answers.
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Quoting Antony Nickles
As Wittgenstein writes in PI 253 "Another person can't have my pains."The word "pain" is a singular thing, having the four letters p, a, i and n. But the concept that it refers to is not a singular thing. My concept of pain is different to yours, my pain is different to yours, my pain yesterday is different to my pain today, and my concept of pain yesterday is different to my concept of pain today. Only as the word "pain" is it a singular thing.
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Quoting Antony Nickles
Yes, humans are individuals and generally live in a community of others. However, humans can equally live as individuals independent of any surrounding community, and can also live as part of the surrounding community. The one doesn't preclude the other.
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Quoting Antony Nickles
My sensation, my beetle, can be different to your sensation, your beetle. My sensation is something, it is not a nothing. Your sensation is something, it is not a nothing.
PI 293 —Suppose everyone had a box with something in it: we call it a "beetle". No one can look into anyone else's box, and everyone says he knows what a beetle is only by looking at his beetle.—Here it would be quite possible for everyone to have something different in his box.
As my something is different to your something, it is true to say that there is not one something but many. It is also true to say that our somethings are not a nothing either, which is why he writes
“PI 304 Not at all. It is not a something., but not a nothing either!”
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Quoting Antony Nickles
PI 246 It can't be said of me at all (except perhaps as a joke) that I know I am in pain. What is it supposed to mean—except perhaps that I am in pain?
I translate this as "only as a joke would I say that I know I am in pain".
If this sentence is referring to my thoughts, then this is true, as the thought I know I am in pain means no more than I am in pain'. As you say"we would never otherwise say “I know I am in pain” because pain is not known"
If the sentence is referring to my words, then this is false, as the words "I know I am in pain" does have a different meaning to "I am in pain". As you say “I am certain I am in pain and that it’s not indigestion”.
Therefore, as the only way that this would be a joke is if I am referring to my thoughts, then PI 246 is referring to my thoughts, not my words.
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Quoting Antony Nickles
In forcing us to better understand the language we use, and misuse, although he may not have been deliberately intending it, Wittgenstein did come up with a new Theory of Language, the Language Game. In the sense that a theory is, according the Oxford Languages, "a supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something, especially one based on general principles independent of the thing to be explained", in his desire to solve the problem of solipsism, he did come up with a theory countering solipsism.
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Quoting Antony Nickles
From the John Searle & Bryan Magee conversation 1987, language is rule governed. As for Wittgenstein, rules cannot be private, language must be public. Language is not bounded by rules, as rules can be interpreted in different ways. There are no rules for the rules. Forms of life determine meaning. Use determines meaning. We act in a primitive way, not from some great theory.
From Wikipedia Language Game (Philosophy), Wittgenstein argued that the meaning in language depends on rules.
A language-game (German: Sprachspiel) is a philosophical concept developed by Ludwig Wittgenstein, referring to simple examples of language use and the actions into which the language is woven. Wittgenstein argued that a word or even a sentence has meaning only as a result of the "rule" of the "game" being played. Depending on the context, for example, the utterance "Water!" could be an order, the answer to a question, or some other form of communication.
Oxford Languages defines a rule as "one of a set of explicit or understood regulations or principles governing conduct or procedure within a particular area of activity." To say that the language game is rule-governed is not to say that such rules are rigid, known and unchanging
PI 102 The strict and clear rules of the logical structure of propositions appear to us as something in the background—hidden in the medium of the understanding. I already see them (even though through a medium)
Wittgenstein says that the rules of language are like the rules of chess, in that the rules of chess don't describe the physical properties of the chess pieces, but rather describe what the pieces do. Similarly, in language, the rules don't describe the words but do describe how the words are used.
PI 108 - But we talk about it as we do about the pieces in chess when we are stating the rules of the game, not describing their physical properties. The question "What is a word really?" is analogous to "What is a piece in chess?"
I agree completely with your interpretation of Wittgenstein as you are using it in this thread to counter RussellA’s realist reading of him. I do have some reservations concerning Wittgenstein’s take on desire and motivation, specifically as it relates to such matters as our ‘desire for certainty’.
Quoting Antony Nickles
My uneasiness about these comments, which I think represents Wittgenstein’s view fairly faithfully, has to do with a distinction which he seems to want to maintain between the relationally discursive and that which would transcend the particularities of historical practices. Put differently, who is it that is motivated by the desire for uniqueness and certainty? If the self is a relational achievement, then aren’t desire and motive also relational, discursive constructions that emerge from traditions of intelligibility within particular communities? Rorty makes a similar point, arguing that what Wittgenstein reifies as a primal desire of humankind is in fact the product of historically changing social-discursive forms of life.
Quoting RussellA
As you may be aware, there are numerous competing interpretations of the later Wittgenstein. You embrace a more conservative, realist-oriented reading, whereas Antony hews to the interpretations of writers like Cavell. I also favor these more ‘postmodern’ approaches. For instance, Hutchinson and Read critique a key representative of this more conservative approach:
Interestingly, Gordon Baker, Hacker's co-author in these papers, had, from 1991 onwards, not only explicitly distanced himself from the Baker & Hacker reading of Philosophical Investigations but also frequently used ‘Baker & Hacker' readings as a stalking horse for his own new reading.
Joseph Rouse reiterates Hutchinson and Read’s contention that for Wittgenstein words do not refer to a pre-existing type or rule of use.
Sorry, but it appears you are not attempting to understand Wittgenstein but are simply operating from your opinions which you refuse to question, in which case, I can’t help. I would suggest reading the entire work of PI and actually answering the questions and trying to see how you could see things entirely differently. Sorry I couldn’t be of more use, good luck.
Cavell would not be my got-to for this stuff. There are others who had more direct contact with Wittgenstein. That's not to say that what he says is wrong, so much as that the emphasis may be skewed. In particular, it seems to me that the essay follows Kripke into rule-scepticism, which I think absent from Wittgenstein.
Thanks.
You might re-visit this. The remainder of the section is a rejection of that suggestion.
And see
Quoting Banno
I do think Cavell is a good example of the method Wittgenstein uses, and explains it well, so I had hoped those parts would be helpful to Russell. I take Cavell as appropriately reading Wittgenstein, focusing on the effects of the desire for certainty and Wittgenstein’s final insights about the limits of knowledge (and rules), which differentiates him from Kripke, who takes rules as fundamental, though flawed.
It will be interesting to see what @Sam26 has to say.
I would characterize Wittgenstein’s insight of our desire for certainty as a temptation based on the human condition (that we are separate and we want knowledge to bridge that gap). Our situation to each other would only change if we someday can read minds or no longer have ongoing relationships (which we may be approaching). The desire for certainty is as ancient as Socrates’ desire for knowledge, spawned from the desire for control, the fear of chaos (and death), and the mistrust of others, so again, I find it unlikely those responses will go away (though they may wax and wain/be overcome and succumbed to).
Yes Wittgenstein is critiquing philosophies gripped by the desire for certainty (including the author of the Tractatus) but he wouldn’t claim that our ordinary language is “a stable, ahistorical background.” It is only a window into our lives (a method) to put the skeptic’s claims into context—not as a skeptical solution, which he goes to great pains (not hard enough it appears) to avoid. The only controversy he is avoiding is the skeptical/anti-skeptical one, the relativist/foundationalist dichotomy, which is to realize our ordinary criteria are sufficient to allow us to bridge the gap between us together.
But I’ll entertain any thoughts on Cavell’s assessment of how to read Wittgenstein more profitably. I always find people take him to be explaining language or offering it as a solution to skepticism, when it is simply a window to see that each thing works differently, not to justify claims about how we play games or follow rules or dream of our own world, but as examples to see why we insist on a requirement (certain knowledge) that they fail to meet.
I'm not sure what you mean by "explaining language", but I don't see why it cannot be both. That is, Wittgenstein does provide "a window to see that each thing works differently" and/or a reflection on "why [traditional philosophers] insist on a requirement (certain knowledge) that they fail to meet" as you say, but he also does this via looking at how language actually works. From the Augustinian picture of language to language-games to (linguistic) meaning-is-use, to rule-following (particularly in mathematics and language), to the private language argument and beyond, Wittgenstein is forever banging on about language and grammar. I think it would be difficult to argue that his focus is not on language. After all, language is the vehicle of philosophy, and Wittgenstein's philosophical investigation gets it importance from "destroying [..,] only houses of cards, and [...] clearing up the ground of language on which they stood."
Yes, Wittgenstein's proposition that the meaning of words in a language is in their use refers to their use in a world, not just their use in the language itself.
From the SEP article on Realism, there are two general aspects to Realism. First, that objects and their properties exist in the world, such as tables and squareness, Second, that such objects and properties are independent of any observer. For Realism, a world exists that is independent of any language used to describe it. For the Realist, there is a world external to the mind. However, within Realism there are different opinions as to how we perceive this world. For the Indirect Realist, we perceive a picture of a table. For the Direct Realist, we directly perceive the table.
As Hutchinson and Read write "For a word to be is for a word to be used. Language does not exist external to its use by us in the world", which is supporting the Realist position, in that they are saying that language can only exist as use in the world. If there was no world, there would be no use for language
As Joseph Rouse writes "Practices should instead be understood as comprising performances that are mutually interactive in partially shared circumstances", again supporting the Realist position, in that as the rules of language can only function in shared circumstances, which is by its nature external to the users of such a rule based language. External to the users of the language is a world .
PI 6 makes this point. Wittgenstein writes that a teacher points to an object and utters a word, such as "slab", thereby establishing an association between a word and a thing. In the mind of a child, the next time the child hears the word "slab", it may imagine a picture of a slab. But Wittgenstein is making the point that the purpose of language is not to evoke images, although this may be useful, the purpose of language is to cause someone to act in a certain way. He describes in PI 2 that in a primitive language, A calls out "slab" and B brings a slab.
What is not explained in PI 6, is how someone can learn a concept, such as the word "slab" from a single picture of a particular slab. However this does not negate the fact that Wittgenstein is specifically associating words in language with things in the world. He is not associating words in language with other words in language.
PI 6 is founded on the assumption that there is a world of objects and things, and builds on the idea that within this world, words in the language game get their meaning from how they are used in the world.
It is true that there are some words in language that don't refer to the world but do refer to other words in the same language. For example the word "unicorn" describes neither something existing in the world nor is described by its definition "a mythical animal typically represented as a horse with a single straight horn projecting from its forehead", but rather replaces the words "a mythical animal typically represented as a horse with a single straight horn projecting from its forehead".
It is possible to imagine a coherent language game where none of its words referred to objects or things in a world, and was totally self-referential. Within such a language game, its propositions would be objective and its truth criteria unambiguous. In Donald Davidson's words, such truth would would be "relative to a scheme". However, what would guarantee the rationality of the scheme as a whole? There would be an uncountable number of such possible language games: the language game of the non-religious atheist, the language game of the non-believer atheist, the language game of the agnostic atheist, the language game of the catholic Christian , the language game of the protestant Christian, the language game of the Eastern Orthodox Christian, etc, etc. A language game with no link to objects and things in a world would be arbitrary and meaningless.
Only the existence of a world would give a meaning to a language game, where the meaning of a word is its use in language, and the meaning of a language is its use in a world.
PI 43 For a large class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word "meaning" it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language
I just don't have the motivation to give much of a response. I haven't read many of the responses given in the recent pages. I've read yours and Luke's, and there maybe be some disagreements, but that's to be expected when parsing Wittgenstein. If I do any writing in the future it will probably be on On Certainty.
If I haven't read what you wrote it's not necessarily because I disagree, but rather that I just haven't set aside the time to do so. Hopefully I'll get more motivated in the coming weeks, and do some more writing on W's final notes.
Thanks for chiming in Banno.
Words which have a use in the language game don't name the thing in the box.
PI 293 - But suppose the word "beetle" had a use in these people's language?—If so it would not be used as the name of a thing. The thing in the box has no place in the language-game at all.
The meaning of a word is its use in the language game.
PI 43 For a large class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word "meaning" it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language
Wittgenstein writes that sentences such as "my pain is the same as his pain" make sense.
PI 253: "In so far as it makes sense to say that my pain is the same as his, it is also possible for us both to have the same pain.
There is the sentence "my X is the same as his X" and I want to find the meaning of X. I am told that the meaning of X is its use in language. If that is true, as I know how the word X has been used within the sentence, I should be able to find its meaning.
What does X mean?
Fair point. But, as you say, he is looking and all I am saying is let’s not loose track of the reason he is looking, and it’s not to be an English teacher (though I do see the irony based on his tone sometimes). We might say he is looking at how language works in the sense of when it is achieving something, but more at why (and when) it doesn’t, which is more akin to why Socrates never seems to quite come up with the answer he wants. Wittgenstein is critiquing traditional philosophy and doing philosophy; addressing traditional philosophical problems. He is not solving the skeptical problem but is investigating language as a means (method) of seeing, for example, that “essence” is what essentially matters to us and “meaning” is really the ways in which things are meaningful, including that the type of sciencified knowledge we want is not our only relation to the world and others.
Quoting Luke
It is the house of cards and its destruction that is important—clearing language of the idea that it has a foundation, certainty: meaning or rules or mental occurrences, etc.
I’ve taken a run at On Certainty a few times and I’ve found that he was attempting to look at the ordinary ways certainty works, having taken apart the philosophical desire for certainty as a foundational solution to skepticism, much as he took apart the desire for “essences” but showed that our ordinary criteria satisfy that yearning in expressing what we find essential about something, its importance, and so retaining the aspiration of Socrates and Kant without succumbing (as they did) to the need for knowledge to replace our role in the world.
I hope, as well, to find the time and motivation to review the work and your posts and learn more (or something else), but I also keep putting off Zettel too.
Quoting Antony Nickles
I am just pointing out that concepts like certainty and knowledge, as products of discursively formed social practices, differ in their meaning from era to era and culture to culture. Foucault performed an archeological analysis of such notions over the past millennium in the West to demonstrate that the very sense , value and use of terms like certainty and knowledge changed significantly from the Classical to the Modern period, across all modes of culture. So claiming that the desire for certainty is ancient is like saying that the desire for Romantic love is ancient, which is to confuse what is universal and transparent with what is culturally and historically contingent.
If there is any motive which transcends the locality of cultural eras, I suggest it is the need for intelligibility. We have always striven to make sense of each other and our world, and we do this by constructing through joint action shared systems of intelligibility. At a number of points in the course of cultural history, certain senses of the concept ( or family of concepts) of certainty were co-constructed. It was a means to an end; the means was the use of the term certainty and the end was the aim of making the world intelligible.
I think Wittgenstein’s focus on the desire for certainty resonates best in the context of the still-dominant influence of Enlightenment tropes of Truth. In poststructuralist and other postmodern forms of discourse, the idea of certainty is no longer considered useful. This is not due to a repression of the desire for it, but because the concept has lost its intelligibility.
I agree wholeheartedly that “certainty” and “knowledge” are specific here, apart from the various senses they have in ordinary use. But both are the product of the desire philosophy has always had for, as he puts it, “crystalline purity”, as old as at least Plato, with the creation of his Forms to stand for the wish for a knowledge apart from the human—e.g., the inherent risk of incommensurability in the moral realm—a fixture beyond the limitation of our human condition (our separateness, the contingency of the future at times on us alone).
Quoting Joshs
And I disagree that this obsession has left us. The war between skepticism and attempts to “solve” it is sphinx-like in its incarnations. The whack-a-mole that once was metaphysics continues with the wish for science to resolve our feeling of lacking sufficient knowledge, and in the modern theoretical convolutions to explain away the truth that there is no fact (or theory) that ensures our understanding each other or continuing on together. To claim the dragon dead (or unintelligible) is to miss the point that as humans we clamor not to err, to be good, to ensure that the future is in our vision and control, that intelligibility is only a matter of process rather than our fickle will.
Quoting Joshs
But yet we want to maintain our inherent uniqueness; that you can’t know “This!” (#253); that my experience is still paramount to communication and the failure is intellectually explainable. That our communicating with each other is just “constructing, through joint action, shared systems of intelligibility” and not an ongoing responsibility to be responsive to each other and our moral claims on each other, or, all too often, to fail or refuse to make ourselves intelligible.
Your conclusion does not quite follow. "it would not be used as the name of a thing" – you conclude that the thing in the box doesn't have a name, when the conclusion ought be that there is no thing in the box to be named.
Again, pain is not a thing! You repeatedly read the text as if it were.
Yep. Something for @Sam26 to consider later.
Quoting Antony Nickles
I thought you might be amused by the similarity between your last sentence and this by Karen Barad:
…and this by Shaun Gallagher:
Barad and Gallagher both utilize Wittgenstein in their work, and are being more faithful to him than I am when I question their (and his) notions of relational responsibility. But just to be clear, the radically social constructionist position Im arguing from doesn’t see shared systems of intelligibility as grounded in autonomous selves. On the contrary, the self is derived concept , a social construction. Since responsivity is a given of relational being, the challenge isn’t how to become responsive to each other, morally or otherwise. The issue is how to enrich and enlarge the system of relational intelligibility that defines us as ‘selves’ within a tradition, so that we can make sense of and embrace alien traditions.
As Ken Gergen writes:
These are all very interesting. I would agree that yes without “responsibility and accountability” the moral realm is not inhabitable (that refusing to acknowledge the other is a “conviction”. P. 223). But I’m worried Barad might be seeing the other as “radically exterior” before we find out if they are such, and jumping to “becoming” together without knowing how we would—unless we are coming from who we are while simply finding our “way about” (#123) as a culture or community (or friends), which may very well mean extending our understanding, our judgments, or even our lives.
Quoting Joshs
It is a “given” that our obligation (to their claim on us as other) characterizes us either in responding or not. However, even if we end up disagreeing, that qualifies as a moral answer. Even with the effort to explicate our criteria on an issue or action, and develop what we find important in the context, we may very well still come to a point where we find we are not in agreement on how to continue together, but at least the process allows us to part on terms we better understand, having learned the others’ interests and desires, as it were, rationally, i.e., being morally rational. So, while I support our ability to be intelligible to the other—and more, the importance of working towards intelligibility of and on the others’ terms (especially in doing philosophy)—I don’t believe a moral solution ends with either a global sameness or the rejection of the others’ legitimacy to define their selves without us, even against us.
Quoting Joshs
While I see Wittgenstein as defining the self differently than an inherent, given thing (e.g., as the self only existed, for Descartes, when we are clear and distinct), I wouldn’t think we go so far as to politicize the terms of the self (requiring the other to be intelligible to us or be “ungrounded”, say, irrational). Though I can see how Marx would agree that the self only has public means for its production (“construction”), he took that to show the importance of not allowing a generic capital (culture) to separate us from our interests, our work, or, as some would say, our “subjectivity”, or what Emerson would call our moral “partiality”, which I read as what I take personally.
Pain is not a thing
Perhaps I am missing what you are saying, but I don't understand when you say that the correct conclusion is that there is no thing in the box to be named, whether a beetle or a pain.
PI 293:Suppose everyone had a box with something in it: we call it a "beetle". No one can look into anyone else's box, and everyone says he knows what a beetle is only by looking at his beetle.—Here it would be quite possible for everyone to have something different in his box.
PI 304 "Not at all. It is not a something., but not a nothing either!"
Are you saying that Wittgenstein should be treated as a zombie having no conscious experiences, no inner sensations of pain, no beetles in his box?
The circularity of "meaning is use"
You didn't explain how to overcome the problem of circularity with "meaning is use", where the meaning of a particular word is determined by its relationship with the other words within a holistic whole. Yet the same is true of every other word, in that their meaning has also been determined by their relationship with the other words within a holistic whole.
If within a language, every part is relative to every other part, it becomes impossible to establish any meaning at all.
My belief is that the meaning of language is fixed by reference to the world, ie Realism. But if you disagree, then what does fix the meaning of language?
Indeed, you are. One can't explain aspect perception to someone who only sees the duck.
No. Forget about "the meaning of a particular word" and instead look to how it is used. There is a way of understanding a word that is not found in setting out synonyms, but which is seen in it's being used.
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2020.0320
I think that article has interesting insights into shared meaning. As a species, language it seems, originated from shared intentionality. Language only works if the speaker and audience agree, and thus they have to both be keyed in on the intention of the person. Intention to what though? This is where it ties into Witty perhaps. The intention is how the word is used. Definitional accounts would be too far removed, as far as I see it, from how symbols get their reference. Use, however, is relevant right "at hand" (literally for early symbols which were probably gestural).
If Terrence Deacon is correct, words/gestures are at first icons whereby the symbol has an aspect of what it represents directly (a hammer motion for hammer or hammering, let's say). To me, that seems to indicate "use" origins of word meanings comes first. Humans are cued for human action and intention.
I would like to emphasize that if it was found that this theory was truly off, then Wittgenstein would be less likely to be correct. I think it depends on best theories based on various techniques used by anthropologists and psychologists to make inferential claims.
It could be the case that it is found that a better theory fits based on evidence gained from studying human and great ape similarities and differences, historical artifacts, and developmental psychology.
Yes cool stuff. I didn't read all of it, but it seems like he is only focusing on institutional facts as distinct from other facts. Does he think that facts about computers having keyboards or this chess piece made of wood work differently, or does he have an all-encompassing theory of language meaning?
The problem I see is that then you have various theories competing that may not be empirical but "just so" stories.. "Well institutional facts work this way" but claims about states of affairs about the world are that way.. and so on.
Yep. What's salient here is the communal nature of certain intentions.
This relates to 's recent thread.
I won't go into Searle here, too much of a digression, except to say that he is a hard realist.
:up:
Quoting Banno
Yes, if I remember, he denies being a property dualist but it being somewhat unconvincing. And here is the proof:
Quoting Why I Am Not a Property Dualist By John R. Searle
Renaming the process as physical doesn't solve anything, except make a semantic definitional change. But it's a change that makes no difference to the substance of the argument. The point is what is it that makes physical things also mental things? The question isn't whether it's biological or not. That gets us nowhere really.
I would agree with him that consciousness can be considered physical or neurobiological exclusively, but it's just begging the question and making some semantic rearrangement that doesn't say much about the issue.
Well he still might be relevant here.. This seems more like the discussion we are having about intention. That is to say, our brains are primed for the implicit intention of a statement:
That seems to accord with Witty, of "use" (how it is used). Although intention is more internal (what is the mind of the other person), and Witty seems to keep things at context with other words within a community. So perhaps it is just different levels of the same phenomena of shared-ness? But if so, this brings in more about internal states versus communal context which @RussellA may be interested in.
Words have a use in the language game, and the language game has a use in the world.
Wittgenstein asks questions, but avoids trying to answer them
There are two parts to my understanding of language: i) words have a use in the language game and ii) the language game has a use in the world. Wittgenstein deals with the first part, but ignores the second. Wittgenstein is like a mountaineer who buys all the ropes, crampons, thermal weatherproof clothes and tents but then never goes to the mountain, justifying himself by saying that the actual climbing of the mountain is a meaningless pursuit. He asks endless questions without trying to draw these together into a comprehensive answer. In fact, he seems proud that he makes no attempt at theorising. Perhaps it is no surprise there is so much misunderstanding surrounding his works
As Stanley Cavell in his article The Later Wittgenstein concludes:
Both (Freud and Wittgenstein) thought of their negative soundings as revolutionary extensions of our knowledge, and both were obsessed by the idea, or fact, that they would be misunderstood -partly, doubtless, because they knew the taste of self-knowledge, that it is bitter. It will be time to blame them for taking misunderstanding by their disciples as personal betrayal when we know that the ignorance of oneself is a refusal to know.
Wittgenstein tackles the first part
As Mark Olssen describes in Wittgenstein and Foucault: The Limits and possibilities of constructivism, Wittgenstein does have a position of Relativism, an Anti-Realism, and even a Linguistic Idealism, where language is the ultimate reality. He explains events not in terms of the individual, but rather in the social constructivist terms of social, historical and cultural "forms of life".
Wittgenstein hints at the second part
Kristof Nyiri points out in Wittgenstein as a common sense Realist that Wittgenstein cannot, at the end of the day, rely on language as a justification for his actions, but rather, does what he does because of the reality of the world in which he exists. When obeying rules, as Wittgenstein writes, sometimes there can be no rational justification expressible in language, it is just what is done in the world. Such is a position of philosophical realism, where people learn about, handle and refer to physical objects within a physical world.
PI 217 If I have exhausted the justifications I have reached bedrock, and my spade is turned. Then I am inclined to say: "This is simply what I do."
Single words have no use, only sentences
A single word such as "slab" has no use, in that If I walked into a room and said "slab" people would look at me with bemusement. Only sentences can have a use, such as "Bring me a slab" or "slab!". Sentences have a meaning when they have a use, and they have a use when they result in an action, such as someone bringing me a slab or people moving out of the way of a falling slab.
Language only has a use when it changes facts in the world
Language only has a use when it changes facts in the world, such as someone bringing me a slab. When it has a use, it means something. If I say "bring me a slab", for language to have any use at all, this means that I want a slab rather than an apple. Therefore, the word "slab" must be able to differentiate between a slab in the world and an apple in the world, meaning that the word "slab" must be able to refer to a slab rather than an apple. The meaning of of the word "slab" must be able to correlate with one particular object in the world. In other words, the word "slab" must name the object slab in the world, a position of Realism. This is Realism regardless of whether the realism of that of the Direct Realist, who perceives the slab in the world, or the Indirect Realist, who perceives a picture of the slab in the world
The meaning of a text and the intentionality of the author
Derrida proposes that a sentence such as "bring me a slab" can still have meaning even if disjoined from the original intentionality of its author, the author's intention when originating the sentence. But this raises the question, does the text of a ChatGPT have meaning if the ChatGPT zombie machine had no conscious intentionality when preparing the text. One could argue that that part of the text which has been directly copied from other authors, who did have a conscious intentionality, does have meaning. However, the act of combining these parts together using rule-based algorithms cannot of itself give meaning to the whole.
As it seems that readers do find meaning in ChatGPT texts, one can only conclude that it is possible for texts disjoined from the original author to have meaning, as Derrida proposed. The meaning has come not from the writer of the text but from the reader.
That words have a use in the language game is necessary but not sufficient
Wittgenstein's meaning is use suffers from the problem of circularity. From the SEP article Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein argues that the meaning of a word is based on how the word is understood within the language game, ie, the use theory of meaning, in that words are not defined by reference to the objects they designate.
PI 43 For a large class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word "meaning" it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language.
He proposes that the meaning of a word does not come from the thing that it is naming, in that the meaning of the word "slab" does not come from a slab in the world. He suggests that we don't need a prior definition of a word in order to be able to successfully use it within the language game of the society within which we are living, but rather, the word is defined through use from "forms of life".
It seems that in the expression "meaning is use", the word "use" refers to use in the language game and not use in the world. It is here that the problem problem of circularity arises. If the meaning of a particular word is determined by its relationship with the other words within a holistic whole, yet the same is true of every other word, in that their meaning has also been determined by their relationship with the other words within a holistic whole. Within a language, if every part is relative to every other part, nothing is fixed, everything is arbitrary, and it becomes impossible to establish any meaning at all.
Conclusion
If meaning as use means use in language, then this is unworkable because of the circularity problem. If meaning as use means use in the world, then this is workable, as the only use of language is to change facts in the world. Language gets its meaning from being able to change facts in the world.
Yes! I agree! This is what I'm trying to say too. He starts at the midground and then thinks that is enough to justify his statements without background. He does it in BOTH Tractatus and Philosophical Investigations. I think this is a form of disrespect for the philosophical audience who is trying to read in good faith, and its an odd form of trolling to the reader in general. He is not above and beyond reproach because he doesn't justify his ideas to a comprehensive conclusion. It just means he is incomplete. Some people take this as some sort of advantage, it seems. Odd that if any modern academic just "uttered stuff" they would get away without justification to a larger picture, the historical arguments, background considerations, etc.
Quoting RussellA
:up:
Quoting RussellA
Sure, but what is considered "real" here? Objects only or abstracted entities (like "justice" or "compassion")? These don't exist "in the world" except as notion in people's internal cognitive understanding.
Interesting idea, but ChatGPT is a simulation of someone with real intent. It's algorithms are such that to model itself as if it had intent, perhaps. It seems to have the intent to provide helpful information, for example.
We make requests as if it had the intentions for this, and it produces those results as if it did. In this case, the intent is fixed (always help you out or answer your requests in a helpful way). Remember though, we just need it to be the case, for it to be operationally "ready" to look at the intent of the statements and expressions being made. And conversely, we may be evolutionarily primed to see intent behind the answers in ChatGPT.
One can also make the case that ChatGPT is an extension of one's own intent. That is to say, it's intention is based on what you are looking for. It's modeling your own intention, that is. It is a blank slate, waiting for the intention to be defined.
I see the circularity too. I think that the article I posited from Tomasello et al, can elucidate more on how "intentionality" and its evolution into a communal "intentionality" can help solve this. I'd have to follow up with a much more in depth response from the article though. In the meantime, if you can, can you take al look at it? It provides some ideas of how intentionality can be the source of meaning in language. He actually sets the theory of "culture" but I think it works in language too.
As an aside I don't think Wittgenstein or Tomasello have a great theory for "self-talk". Much of our talk is just our own conversation with our self. If I make statement, "That is a rock" to myself, silently in my mind, and have no intention other than what I am seeing, and it's not done to remember something, but as some sort of habit when I see something, what intention is behind that? What use is that? There doesn't seem to be much intent or use in that kind of statement. So then does it not have meaning? It does though. That indeed is a rock. There is a correspondence there. Not sure if @Banno has an answer for that.
He does not ignore the fact that a language game has a use in the world. The language game develops out of and is understood within the context of a form of life, which includes particular activities, such as building.
Quoting RussellA
Of course it comes from a slab in the world! The builder does not order him to bring a slab that does not exist. The assistant must know what kind of object he is to bring.
(2)
What makes it a complete language is that it does not consist simply in objects named but what is done with those objects. In other words, its use in the world.
What twaddle. Wittgenstein explicitly asks his readers to look at how words are actually used. Suggesting he does not look at how "the language game has a use in the world" is the most extreme example of your misreading so far. That follows you here shows how little he has understood. As happens so often, the fly is so happy in the bottle it will go out of its way to remain there.
That's beautifully expressed. Probably belongs in the Certainty thread too.
Quoting Tom Storm
I Certainly hope so
I was reacting more to his not having a justification. Not sure I’m convinced about the realism implication. More this:
Quoting RussellA
Even if I had credentials as a fully academic professor of philosophy…writing on an obtuse style..well I gave my answer. I dont care what ethos you give it (But he’s the great X!).
I rather read a clear wrong philosopher than an obtuse can never be wrong one.
Wittgenstein's work shows the poverty of what is here being called "theorising". There's something oddly obtuse in denouncing him for not doing something that he has shown to be an error.
What shit is more like it.
What pray tell is the error he has shown? Neither his language games argument nor his "silence" argument (from Tractatus), necessarily precludes providing context, connecting with other ideas, etc.
But most importantly, he admitted so himself!
What happened? I liked the emoji :razz: !
https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rstb.2020.0320
So it's not like I am disagreeing per se. I certainly agree with him that the kind of formalism of Russell's enterprise was not going to work and that it was just a synthetic language game that was trying to account for an ordinary language game which is more explained by intention, etc. But I bring your attention to the questions I had for RusselA:
Quoting schopenhauer1
First, I should've responded like I did. Second, I'm not sure that my disagreements are the same as @Banno's. - some probably are. Third, I'm responding to passages like the following, which seems a clear misunderstanding of Wittgenstein. I think most people who study Wittgenstein, even many who disagree with some of Witt's remarks, would find @RussellA's remarks in the following quote just wrong.
Quoting RussellA.
The idea that Wittgenstein ignores how language-games have a use in the world seems way off the mark, since he constantly talks about meaning (use) in reference to the world (including our forms of life in the world). I don't see how anyone who has read Wittgenstein can make such a statement. This isn't about some subtle disagreement, but about the meat and potatoes of the Investigations.
I commend anyone who spends time trying to understand Witt, even when I disagree. His writing style doesn't lend itself to easy interpretations. I think the problem lies in reading too many secondary sources. Secondary sources can be a great help, but you have to read many different sources to get a good balanced understanding, and even this doesn't always help.
One of the reasons why Witt doesn't always answer a question is that he's trying to make us think. He's not trying to avoid answering the question. I can't imagine Witt shying away from answering questions. And finally, if you understand that Witt is giving us a method of doing philosophy and not a linguistic theory, this will help steer you in the right direction. Our tendency is to look for a theory and miss the method. It's the method that is most important. This is Wittgenstein's legacy I believe.
If Wittgenstein is against theorising, then why did he write that the meaning of a word can be either i) its use in language or ii) what it points to.
PI 43 - For a large class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word "meaning" it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language. And the meaning of a name is sometimes explained by pointing to its bearer.
Or is PI 43 the interlocutor's opinion rather than Wittgenstein's?
It gets more complicated when the Wikipedia article on Philosophical Investigations writes that in the use theory of meaning, words are not defined by reference to the objects they designate. If that is the case, then PI 43 is contradictory!
Wittgenstein claims that the meaning of a word is based on how the word is understood within the language-game. A common summary of his argument is that meaning is used. According to the use theory of meaning, the words are not defined by reference to the objects they designate or by the mental representations one might associate with them, but by how they are used.
It seems strange that PI 43 would be famous, yet not something that Wittgenstein actually believed in.
The same was and is said of Socrates. The reason in both cases can be found in the preface to PI:
Quoting Fooloso4
I agree 100% that Wittgenstein does not ignore the fact that the language game has a use in the world, such as teachers, pain, slabs, roses, shopkeepers, pupils, pillars, etc.
Perhaps a better wording would have been: "It seems that Wittgenstein's position is that i) words have a meaning because of their use in the language game, ii) the language game has a use in the world. He seems to ignore the fact that words also have meaning because of their use in the world".
From Wikipedia Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein is criticizing the view that the meaning of language derives from pointing out objects in the world, but rather the meaning of a word is its use in language.
Section 43 in Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations reads: "For a large class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word "meaning," it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language." Wittgenstein begins Philosophical Investigations with a quote from Augustine's Confessions, which represents the view that language serves to point out objects in the world and the view that he will be criticizing. The individual words in a language name objects—sentences are combinations of such names. In this picture of language, we find the roots of the following idea: Every word has a meaning. This meaning is correlated with the word. It is the object for which the word stands.
From the IEP article on Ludwig Wittgenstein, Wittgenstein has been described as a Linguistic Idealist, where language is the ultimate reality and as an Anti-Realist, someone who cannot get outside their own language in order to compare what is in their language with what is in the world.
Given the two sentences "the house is on the hill" and "the hill is on the house", each having a different meaning, what determines the correct sequence of words?
I can understand Augustine's position that we can discover the correct sequence of words by observing the world, and finding a correspondence between the words and objects in the world. We observe that the house is on the hill, and therefore the proposition "the house is on the hill" is true and the proposition "the hill is on the house" is false.
But I cannot understand the position that the meaning of a word derives from its context within the language game. How can a sentence determine the correct sequence of words within itself ?
Quoting Fooloso4
Perhaps one advantage of science is that it does try to answer the questions it has raised.
Fair enough. No doubt he runs a gamut of interesting questions. I’d just rather there be an explicitness to the kinds of things he is countering. A survey of other theories and how his own weighs against that. He’ll mention a Frege or an Augustine or a Socrates every once in a while, but not enough I think.
Perhaps it is just my distaste for the so called “linguistic turn” where language is turned into first philosophy. I grant that his illustration of how language is constructed adds some jumping off points. I just don’t see the need to fanboy it’s a holy script.
Quoting Sam26
The method of asking questions and answering them in Socratic fashion? Seems to be a long tradition but he does that only about language use.
Quoting Fooloso4
Maybe it's this presumption that I have trouble with. It makes one seem "above the fray". Come into the pig pen, my dear Witty!
But at the same token, you are doing precisely here, what Witty himself would refuse to do (pour of other people's words) in such a devout manner.
He's trying to get people out of the pig pen. He's trying to clarify our philosophical thinking, which is no easy task. I think Wittgenstein went off the rails a bit when it comes to what can be said, i.e., in terms of metaphysics.
See it's that attitude bolded that rubs me the wrong way. My first reaction is, "Oh is he!" followed by "Wow Socrates, you're so clever!". What I am talking about is discussing the relevant theories at hand and comparing and contrasting and defending your position in a systemic way. This doesn't mean that you must exclude your exposition (he does that well already), just that it should be nested within a more systemic or analytic approach in order for him to not just be a prophet but a philosopher. Character of Socrates the question asker is cool, but it is Plato that we read for his system and theories, and Aristotle who we read who refute Plato and provide reasons for such, etc.
That is precisely incorrect. Consider the following:
Quoting RussellA
To which Wittgenstein's first comment upon was:
The Wiki article can be discarded at the get go.
I don't think you see how you sound from an outsider perspective here. You sound like because he asked a lot of questions and answered his own questions, that he has these god-like qualities.
A lot of what he says is intuitive, but fleshed out (language is a game constructed from its usage). He gives many examples of such. Cool. But it makes not commitments really one way or the other of its own implications other than that his previous theory (and to some extent Augustine and Russell) were wrong. Well, yeah.. Interestingly, I think he did a great job taking himself to task about his own idea of "atomic facts". Why? Because in Tractatus he just started there and had no real context for it. He provided more context for it (and why it is wrong) in the PI than the Tractatus which started from this very important assumption!
But anyways, no he doesn't have to fit my theory of how good philosophy should be written. I just question why he is to be fanboyed to death. He himself, did not do such, yet apparently he is put on a pedestal and is now thoroughly worshipped for it. It certainly gives Philosophy of Language stuff to churn over and over. As long as it is open-ended, it can never be wrong, right? So make few commitments and you can carve your name in history!
It's not even so much just fanboying. Look, I "fanboy" on Schopenhauer. Perhaps I'll start a thread on something about him shortly, even. But Schopenhauer made a lot of commitments in his works, that can be criticized and compared one way or the other. Schopenhauer himself put his theories in context to other philosophies, etc. I find much of what he writes as having some element of intangible wisdom to it. You might find the same with Wittgenstein. However, I also disagree and am critical of a lot of foundational stuff in Schopenhauer as well, whilst still being charitable to where he is coming from. I don't see that as much from the Wittgenstein fanboy crowd. So here is @RussellA who clearly has read Wittgenstein and quotes him at length, but dares to challenge him. And it seems that Wittgenstein can never do wrong with many of his defenders. I don't know, that to me goes beyond just being a fan.
It's always "misinterpretation" because "obviously" if one read him "correctly" one would have to agree with him!
Simplifying, as I understand it, words have meaning in two ways. First, meaning by description, in the sense of Wittgenstein's use theory of meaning and second, meaning by acquaintance, in the sense of Augustine's correlation of word with object.
As regards meaning by description, it is true that there are some words in language that don't refer to the world but do refer to other words in the same language. For example the word "unicorn" describes neither something existing in the world nor is described by its definition "a mythical animal typically represented as a horse with a single straight horn projecting from its forehead", but rather replaces the words "a mythical animal typically represented as a horse with a single straight horn projecting from its forehead".
If every word in language gained its meaning by description, language would be self-referential and unworkable. At lest some of the words in language need to gain their meaning from a correspondence or correlation with objects or events in the world, typified by the word table and the expression pain behaviour
What is real? The unicorn exists as a combination of words. As the words are real, does this mean that the unicorn is also real. Is a table real? The Indirect Realist would say that tables don't exist in the world, and the Direct Realist would say that tables do exist in the world. Both would agree that tables exist as concepts in the mind, but then again, are concepts real?
Quoting schopenhauer1
I don't know how ChatGPT works exactly, but it seems to use statistical mapping. The parts may be copied from existing authored sources, and thereby have intentional content, but the parts may be combined statistically using historical data, which has no intentional content.
For example, Harry Guinness in the article How Does ChatGPT work?, gives his own example
Harry Guinness is a freelance writer and journalist based in Ireland. He has written for a variety of publications, including The New York Times, The Guardian, The Huffington Post, and Popular Mechanics. He covers topics ranging from technology and photography to travel and culture.
He notes that parts have been copied verbatim from his previous web sites, but the list of publications has been basically made up. As the New York Times and Guardian have been historically grouped together, ChatGPT had assumed because he had written for the New York Times, he had also written for the Guardian
As the statistical nature of ChatGPT breaks any intentionality on the part of ChatGPT, it can only be the reader who can bring intentionality to the text.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Michael Tomasello makes the point that human culture has developed from collaboration and shared intentionality rather than individual learning alone. As a believer in Enactivism, this seems highly plausible. For example, sand dunes take their form not from the wind alone, not from the sand alone, but from a dynamic interaction between the two.
I won't speak for anyone else, but as I see it, what is at issue is not agreement or disagreement but the strength of an interpretation. A problematic interpretation is problematic whether the interpreter agrees or disagrees with an author.
Sure, and perhaps that is the case in this instance. That remains to be seen (because after all, these are two-sided interlocutors on an internet forum so we can't just assume strong incredulity means thus wrongly interpreted).
There are two things going on here. There is really a misinterpretation and this is clearly demonstrated, or the interpretation is correct and the disagreement is over the substantive issue. But it would be a bad faith argument if all disagreements were seen to be but mere misinterpretations (indicating that true interpretation sees the clear and present truth of the substantive issue and being in accord with the prophet/philosopher).
Even where I strongly agree with Schopenhauer, I will allow for others who read him to be wrong about their estimation of his thoughts (even if I think they interpreted right). I do not think "knowing" Schopenhauer's philosophy confers one's epistemic understanding to accord with the "truth" by way of simply understanding what he is saying.
Quoting RussellA
He clearly didn't write anything of the sort. He wrote that one of the ways in which words can be used is to point.
The Wiki article leaves much to be desired. Check out it's history and talk. It needs attention from a dedicated team, or a specialist in the topic.
PI 182. The criteria which we accept for 'fitting', 'being able to', 'understanding', are much more complicated than might appear at first sight. That is, the game with these words, their employment in the linguistic intercourse that is carried on by their means, is more involved—the role of these words in our language other—than we are tempted to think.
Does this cylinder C fit into this cylinder H ?
An engineer would say "Of course, I fitted it yesterday". A Professor of Linguistics would say "depends what you mean by "fit", it's a complicated question, the proper use of words, I am sure there's a definition, but we cannot depend on that, as definitions change"
PI 182 sounds more like the anti-realist linguist than the realist engineer.
Quoting Paine
PI 1 - Now think of the following use of language: I send someone shopping. I give him a slip marked "five red apples". He takes the slip to the shopkeeper.................But what is the meaning of the word "five"?—No such thing was in question here, only how the word "five" is used.
The customer walks into the shop and presents a piece of paper with the word "apple" written on it to the shopkeeper.
The word is meaningless to both the customer and shopkeeper, unless both the customer and shopkeeper are aware of a priori agreed rule that if someone walks into a shop with a slip of paper with a word written on it, then the shopkeeper must then go to a particular drawer that has the same word stencilled on the front of it, open the drawer, and then give to the customer whatever object there is in the drawer.
By itself, a single word has a meaning but no use. For example, if I walked into a room and said "apple", I would be looked at as if I were mad. The listeners would know that "apple" meant a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree, but they would see no use in my having said it.
Similarly the word "apple" written on the slip would have a meaning but no use. It would only have a use if a priori agreed rule was in place.
The use of the word "apple" on the slip of paper is to activate a prior agreed rule. The content of the rule is independent of the word. The rule could be to open a particular drawer, or it could equally be to make an apple pie.
The interlocutor asks of Wittgenstein, "what is the meaning of the word "apple"", and Wittgenstein replies that the word has no meaning, it only has a use.
But what is the word's use?
Its use is not for the customer to be given an apple. Its use is to initiate a prior agreed rule, regardless of the consequences of the rule.
When Wittgenstein writes that words don't have meaning but only a use, this can only be interpreted as saying that the use of words is to initiate prior agreed rules regardless of the consequences of such rules.
Wittgenstein never says this. He says that the meaning of the word "five" was not in question in the shopkeeper scenario; not that it has no meaning.
Wittgenstein does not endorse but rejects the Augustinian picture of language wherein "Every word has a meaning. This meaning is correlated with the word. It is the object for which the word stands."
At 43, he tells us that for a large class of cases, "the meaning of a word is its use in the language".
At 1, he says that with regards to the shopkeeper's actions: "It is in this and similar ways that one operates with words." Do you think the shopkeeper was wrong to count out five red apples in response to being handed the slip of paper? Do you think that the word "five" means something else (or nothing at all) in this scenario?
When Wittgenstein talks about "use", I am unclear whether he is referring to the word having a use in a sentence or the sentence having a use in the world.
PI 43 For a large class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word "meaning" it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language. And the meaning of a name is sometimes explained by pointing to its bearer.
I can read the sentence "the meaning of a word is its use in the language" in two ways:
1) The word "five" has a meaning because it has a use within a sentence, such as "I want five apples". Even before I use the sentence "I want five apples" in the world, the word "five" has a meaning because it has a use within a sentence.
2) The word "five" has a meaning because the sentence it is within has a use in the world. For example, my saying "I want five apples", the shopkeeper hearing me, who then starts to count out five apples. If the shopkeeper doesn't hear me, and doesn't count out five apples, then as the sentence has no use in the world, the word "five" has no meaning.
Which reading is correct. Or is there another reading?
It is realist to the degree that W defers to the engineer as providing a clear example of the statement meaning something.
The example of the shopkeeper and the apples is in response to the picture of language as words naming objects.
(PI 1)
Red is not the name of an object, but names the color of the apples. Five tells him how many, and is not an object either. Apple names an object, but naming apples is not what this use of language is about.
What is the meaning of the slip of paper with the words "five red apples"? The object, the slip of paper, is not the meaning of the slip of paper. If the shopkeeper's apprentice hands him this slip of paper it might be an inventory list. If I found it I would not know what it means. I would not know what to do with in. Perhaps it is an IOU or some ingredients for a recipe.
The sentence "I want five apples" specifies how many apples I want, but the meaning of the sentence is under determined. What it means to the shopkeeper is not what it means when I express a wish.
I'm inclined to say that 2) is the correct reading, but I don't think there's any real distinction between 1) and 2). In short, because all use - including the use of a word in a sentence - is a use in the world.
In 1) you seem to be referring to conventional meaning, or how the word is commonly (actually) used. A dictionary lists such conventional meanings. Obviously, many words have more than one conventional meaning/use. But it is in actual use - in a specific context (embedded in specific acts in the world) - where a word finds its actual meaning(s); where it is used to have one or more of these conventional meanings, or possibly an unconventional meaning.
All the conventional ways that a word is commonly used (or all the meanings that a word commonly has) is not necessarily the meaning that a word does have in an actual instance of use. Consider poetry, metaphor, double entendre, proper nouns, etc.
It is not yet clear what "I want five apples" means apart from any particular use of that sentence in the world. Obviously, we can imagine how the sentence might commonly or conventionally be used, but there are likely to be other ways that it could be used, and therefore other meanings that it could have. For example, "Five" could be a variety of apple or "five apples" could be a brand name or a code phrase or a double entendre or a nickname, etc.
If the shopkeeper doesn't hear you, then just say the same thing again but louder. It doesn't imply that the sentence has no use in the world or that the word has no meaning. You could use the same sentence again here or elsewhere with the same meaning. But the one word or sentence doesn't necessarily have to be used the same way, to have the same meaning, in every situation.
Quoting Fooloso4
As you say, Wittgenstein is responding to Augustine.
I agree with Wittgenstein that Augustine's position, as Wittgenstein presents it, is too simplistic. It seems sensible to say that language only has meaning if it has a use in the world.
PI 1: In this picture of language we find the roots of the following idea: Every word has a meaning. This meaning is correlated with the word. It is the object for which the word stands
Words can name objects in the world, but they have other uses as well. They can name properties, such as the colour red, they can be definitions, such as "a unicorn a mythical animal typically represented as a horse with a single straight horn projecting from its forehead", they can be metaphors, poetic, exclamations, feelings such as pain, etc.
As words only exist in language, then it logically follows that everything a word is depends on it being part of language, including its meaning. It is hard to argue against the idea that the meaning of a word is its use in language
PI 43 - For a large class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word "meaning" it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language. And the meaning of a name is sometimes explained by pointing to its bearer
What Wittgenstein doesn't mention in PI 43 is the next necessary step in our understanding of the meaning of words, and that is that the meaning of language is its use in the world.
Wittgenstein does talk about things in the world, such as slabs, for example PI 20:"Hand me a slab", "Bring him a slab", "Bring two slabs", but this can be understood in two ways.
1) As with Augustine, the word "slab" gets its meaning from referring to a slab in the world.
2) The word "slab" doesn't get its meaning from referring to a slab in the world, but instead gets its meaning from being read in context within the other words used in the text.
I can understand 1), in that language is grounded within the world, but I cannot understand 2), where language becomes self-referential without any possibility of being grounded in the world .
I agree with Wittgenstein that not all words refer to objects in the world, but I am unclear as to his position. Does he believe that no word gets its meaning from referring to an object in the world ?
Wittgenstein is critical of Augustine's picture of language for failing to consider that words can have other possible uses besides naming objects (as nouns):
However, Wittgenstein does not deny that some words do name objects, or can refer to things in the world. He is critical of the view that language primarily names objects and the rest is just a sort of filler. He criticises Augustine's picture for failing to consider that there can be other kinds of words, or that words can have other uses besides naming objects, and that the meaning of a word is not always or only the object to which the word refers. Consider the builder's language game in section 2. "Slab!" is not used merely as a reference to the object, but as a command to have the object brought to the builder. See sections 19-20.
This picture of language is the picture drawn in the Tractatus.
Quoting RussellA
The word slab as used in the builder's language does not simply refer to the slab in the world, to a piece of stone. It functions as a command. It means "bring me a slab". The builder's language does not occur in a text, but rather in the context of the activity of building.
Quoting RussellA
He does not deny that some words refer to objects. What he rejects is that EVERY word functions in this way. The builder's language makes this point by showing that the names of objects is an incomplete picture of the language.
Yep.
I think it worth adding that he also shows that pointing, referring, and indeed ostension of any form are already aspects of some language game. They cannot therefore serve as a foundation from which language games are to be built. Reference does not ground language.
Quoting Fooloso4
After a bit of pondering, I will stick my neck on the line and say that, at the core of Philosophical Investigations, with its language games, family resemblances and Forms of Life, no word names an object in the world. IE, the PI rejects a referential theory of meaning (aka Direct Reference Theory, Referentialism, Referential Realism).
How does a child learn a new word, such as "table". They are shown many examples of things, similar in some way, but all different, and as Wittgenstein says, having family resemblances. Each particular thing is a token of a general type.
We know when the child understands the meaning of the word "table", when we ask the child to point to a "table" and they successfully point to a table rather than to an apple or the ceiling. They know how to use the word.
But as each child has had different life experiences, has had a unique Form of Life, and has been shown a unique set of examples, each child's concept of a "table" must be unique to them. My concept of "table" must be different to your concept of "table", as my concept of pain must be different to yours. Similar in many ways but different in others.
The concept "table" only exists in the mind and not the world. What exists in the world are particular examples, particular instantiations, of our concept of the word "table".
But as Wittgenstein pointed out in PI 293, our private experiences, whether that of pain or the concept of a "table", drop out of consideration in the language game. In the language game we can talk about "pains" and "tables", even though I don't know your pain or concept of "table" and you don't know my pain or my concept of "table".
Therefore, when I hear "bring me a table", this in fact a figure of speech, and replaces the sentence "bring me something in the world that is an example of your concept of a "table"".
In the sentence "bring me a table", the word "table" is not referring to either my or your concept of "table", because, as with the beetle, it has dropped out of consideration in the language game.
As I have in my mind my own concept of "table", having learn the concept from seeing in the world many examples of things that have been named "table" by a community, when I hear someone say "bring me a table", I can reverse the process and find a thing in the world that is a particular example of my own concept.
The word "table" in the sentence "bring me a table" is not referring to a table in the world, to an object in the world, but is referring to the many examples of things in the world experienced over decades and multiple locations as having a family resemblance and been named "table" by a community, of which the thing in front of me is just one particular example.
Mustn't the child point to a table, i.e. "an object in the world", in order to "successfully point to a table rather than to an apple or the ceiling"?
Quoting RussellA
Those particular instantiations of our concept of the word "table" are tables, which are objects in the world.
Quoting RussellA
You're asking me to bring you a table, not to bring you my concept of "table". If a child can successfully point to a table, then I can successfully bring you one.
Quoting RussellA
That's right, the word "table" is not referring to either of our concepts of "table", but to the object in the world that we call a "table". Why, then, do you think that "no word names an object in the world"?
Quoting RussellA
Is this thing in front of you - this object in the world; this particular example of a table - not a table?
This is a very odd picture. No one goes around pointing to various things in the child's world and naming them. A child learns the word 'table' in the context of her life. Where her food or toy is on the table, or she is under the table, or has bumped into the table and hurt herself.
Quoting RussellA
Pointing to objects is not how we use words. We know she understands the word 'table' not because she points to it but because when we tell her the toy is on the table she knows were to look.
Quoting RussellA
For the child what exists are not examples or instantiations of concepts. What exists are the things she encounters and uses, the things she learns to call 'table' and 'chair'. She does not begin at the level of concepts.
Quoting RussellA
Of course it is! What is she to bring if not a table in the world? She learns that some of the things she might brings are tables and others are not. She learns that the coffee table is a table even though it different than the kitchen table and that the stool is not a table even though her toy is on it.
The Philosophical Investigations rejects Referentialism. In Referentialism, the child would point to an object in the world. If the child is not pointing to an object in the world, according to the PI, then what exactly is the child doing.
From Wikipedia Direct Reference Theory, the PI opposed Referentialism.
A direct reference theory (also called referentialism or referential realism) is a theory of language that claims that the meaning of a word or expression lies in what it points out in the world. The object denoted by a word is called its referent. Criticisms of this position are often associated with Ludwig Wittgenstein. In 1953, with his Philosophical Investigations, Wittgenstein argued against referentialism, famously saying that "the meaning of a word is its use."
As the SEP article on Ludwig Wittgenstein writes, as regards the PI, one should forget about meaning as representation and look to use.
“For a large class of cases of the employment of the word ‘meaning’—though not for all—this word can be explained in this way: the meaning of a word is its use in the language” (PI 43). This basic statement is what underlies the change of perspective most typical of the later phase of Wittgenstein’s thought: a change from a conception of meaning as representation to a view which looks to use as the crux of the investigation"
What is an object? The SEP article Object discusses the nature of objects. Is it really the case that the child is pointing at a table as an object, or is the child pointing at a set of atoms that have a momentary location in time and space, and have taken the form of one particular example of the general concept "table". To say that the child is looking at an object is to say that what exists in the mind of the child as a concept also happens to ontologically exist in the world.
Hawthorne and Cortens (1995) speak for the nihilist thus: “the concept of an object has no place in a perspicuous characterization of reality” (p. 143). They suggest three theories on which there are no objects. The first that there are just stuffs everywhere, but no objects. The second that there is just one big mass of stuff.[14] The third is that there just isn’t anything at all. This last option is what Hawthorne and Cortens defend. They do so using what they (following Strawson) call a “feature-placing language”. They model a potential nihilist program on sentences like “it is raining”, “it is snowing now”, and “it is cold here”. Such sentences do not quantify over anything and have no logical subject (‘it’ functions as a dummy pronoun), and so do not ontologically commit one to anything. The nihilist may then paraphrase sentences that apparently require objects (such as “there is a computer here”) with those that do not (such as “it is computering here”). In short, the nihilist turns every putative noun into an adverb, making judicious use of spatial, temporal, and numerical adverbs too.
Perhaps the PI is following what Strawson calls a feature-placing language, where such sentences as "it is a table" don't quantify over anything, and therefore don't commit the speaker to having to refer to any ontologically existent object.
No table as such exists in the world. What exists in the world are examples of tables, some grey in colour and some brown in colour, some with four legs and some with three legs, some new and some old, some made of plastic and some made of wood. No one can point to The Table about which all other tables are copies. No one table takes precedence over any other. Only the concept table can exist as a singular thing, and that exists in the mind and not the world.
The child points at a table, but a moment later the thing being pointed at it has lost a few atoms, gained a scratch or two and has warped slightly. Is it the same table? Can one argue that something can physically change yet remain the same object.
When one says "the child points at a table", this is a figure of speech for "the child points at an example of its concept of "table""
If things in the child's world are not named, how does the child learn the names of things.
Quoting Fooloso4
The child must already know what a table is if the child knows the toy is on top of it.
Quoting Fooloso4
Every table in the world is different in some way. Some are brown in colour and some grey, some with four legs and some with three, some pristine and new and some old and scratched, etc. The child couldn't learn a different name for every different table, all they can do is learn the concept of "table", a single word incorporating family resemblances.
They are named, but the name of things in the child's world are not generally learned by going around pointing.
Quoting RussellA
This is how he learns what a table is - it is what the toy is on. It is where we sit to eat.
Quoting RussellA
Yes, and some things that are not tables may be the same as a table in some way. A child might call a horse a big dog. He is eventually corrected. He might then call a cow a horse. He is eventually corrected. For the time being, however, 'big dog' may be sufficient. In time he learns that some differences do not matter for what a thing is called and others do.
The either/or expressed by moving from "meaning as representation to a view which looks to use as the crux of the investigation", assumes that the challenge W is making to treating words as pointing to essences should be replaced by a competing explanation of essence. I think this interpolates an intention to make an ontological claim that is not Wittgenstein's concern.
That we may misunderstand our relation to "essence" does not mean that we can fix that with another general approach. Working with 'family resemblances' comes from our limitations to provide what some words seem to give us. By that token, the approach does not give us that something through another means.
Ironically, even though I disagree perhaps with this ontologically nihilistic claim, the fact that he (Cortens) spends any time explaining objects (as well as the SEP article in general it came from), is infinitely more informative, and interesting than Witty's Tractatus where he just starts with the assumption about objects, as if the ontological work of positing this view doesn't even need to be explained.
I can't even get away with that shit on a philosophy forum! He gets defenders. As long as I have a claim like, "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent." I get a pass and don't have to defend anything. :roll: :rofl:
The objects and names discussed in the PI are not the simple objects and names of the Tractatus.
Indeed they aren't. That is barely discussed in PI. Indeed, it's all language games, all the way down. But this doesn't say much about metaphysics or epistemology. It's a long treatise on language so, not much to mine from it other than meaning is "language games". Indeed, in very different ways, both the Tractatus and the PI don't make many references to epistemological or ontological claims at all.
For the Tractatus, he can always hide behind the "Whereof one cannot speak.." quote. For the PI, he can hide behind "language games", and thus no commitment shalt be made. Thus the defenders pick up the slack and such and do "something" with it.
In a way, good for Witty. He let the blowhards stuff his ideas into various academic BS. He was able to avoid it himself.
Risible.
I actually did a "Find" on the word "objects" in PI, just in case I missed something, and it showed up 38 times. None of the instances discussed objects in any philosophical way beyond the language game thing. There were no commitments to "what" "how" etc. So, yeah I refer you to this:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/838538
Referentialism says that pointing out an object in the world is the only use a word can have. Wittgenstein says that words can also have other uses. As we pointed out to you earlier, Wittgenstein does not deny that words can be used to refer to objects. What he rejects is that words are only used to refer to objects.
Quoting RussellA
This implies that it is impossible for the child to be wrong; that the child must always point to a table, no matter what they point to, as long as it aligns with the child’s concept of “table”.
However, this is inconsistent with your earlier comment:
Quoting RussellA
If the child’s concept determines what is or what isn’t (an example of) a table, then here we cannot talk about “success” or “failure”.
Do you want to say that it is impossible to determine whether the child has successfully pointed to a table? Can we never teach anyone to speak a language?
After reading some of the recent comments, I wanted to offer what help I can on reading Wittgenstein (following the Cavell essay I attached earlier):
Yes, words sometimes refer to objects (and are meaningful as names), but that is only one of many ways the world (and meaning) works. The PI is an investigation of examples to show how varied other ways are, and why we want it to only be one way.
He is using a particular method (this is not ordinary writing). He looks at the evidence of what we say—shorthanded as: “language”, but not as the subject (except as another example) nor the salvation—when we are doing activities (the examples, which he groups under the term “concepts”, like chess playing, rule-following, meaning, seeing, pointing, etc.) and he either offers an appropriate situation (context) in which we would say it (or he imagines that) in order to see how vast are the ways that the world works (their “grammar” and criteria), and how and when they don’t.
You have to be able to see what he is describing for yourself (at times only hinting at it or in a riddle-like phrase), because he can’t tell you (he is trying to change our mindset, how we see the world, others). Look at what he says as speculative (he is almost running it by himself at times), because we must agree in our judgment of the situation—what we would also say in that situation. (Thus why @schopenhauer1 and @RussellA balk at the unsubstantiated accept-or-reject nature of his statements.) It is almost like it isn’t a matter of understanding him as much as seeing (the vision) the perspective, as he puts it, the attitude (as in: the position in relation to).
The goal is to see how and why we are (philosophy is) tempted to want a single theory for everything that is simple, logical, and certain (he says “pure”); to look at the desire philosophy has to have the problems of skepticism and other minds solved by something we can know. But Witt is not offering a better solution or some foundation for the limitations of knowledge—as people take: language games, “use”, forms of life, etc., to be. The reason he finds is that there is an open possibility of meaninglessness (uncertainty, doubt, skepticism) which scares us away from our ordinary criteria into a myopic view of how the world works so we can be sure about it, know it (but that knowledge is not the only relation to the world).
Also: “Use” is not some operation done to, or result held by, language (say, by the casual power of “our intention”); it is part of his method to look and see that what is said can be meaningful in different ways, from different vantages, in different situations (have different “uses” or “senses” he also calls them) depending on the concept, the context, who, when, where, to whom, etc. He is saying look at all the factors and criteria from the whole history of all our lives that hold what we are interested in, what matters in what we do, our criteria of judgment about what is meaningful. “Meaning” is not put into language by you, it is judged as meaningful (or not) by our ordinary criteria.
For example, the Decision Lab writes of Wittgenstein as one of the most important philosophers of the 20th C:
Ludwig Wittgenstein was one of the most important philosophers of the 20th century. There were few philosophical fields left untouched by the British-Austrian genius; he worked with logic, mathematics, ethics, the mind, and most notably, revolutionized the way that we understand language.
The article writes that part of his importance was in moving philosophy from trying to discoverer the truth of the world to find explanations that allowed people to picture the world.
He believed that in the 1900s, philosophers had become too concerned with trying to discover a magical doctrine that explained the ‘truth’ of the world.................Instead, he believed the purpose of philosophy was to find explanations that allowed people to picture the world.
Perhaps he can be seen as starting to lay the foundation for today's Postmodernism, which, according to Britannica is characterized by scepticism, subjectivism and relativism.
Postmodernism, also spelled post-modernism, in Western philosophy, a late 20th-century movement characterized by broad scepticism, subjectivism, or relativism; a general suspicion of reason; and an acute sensitivity to the role of ideology in asserting and maintaining political and economic power.
The PI, in opposing Referentialism in favour of Relativism, whereby words can only be understood within the context in which they appear, has perhaps contributed to the situation today whereby in one context I can think of myself as an Italian, male engineer, but in another context I can think of myself as an Indian, female shot putter. Today, perhaps partly in thanks to Wittgenstein, it is my truth that is important now, not facts in the world.
As you say "A child learns the word 'table' in the context of her life."
The child asks "where is my toy". Its parent says "your toy is on the table". The child sees the toy and knows that it is on something. But from a single example, the child cannot know what "table" is referring to. Is it referring to a tablecloth, a table, something made of wood, something with four legs, etc.
Only by experiencing many examples will the child be able to discover a family resemblance in the examples and narrow down the meaning of "table" to what we know as the concept "table".
PI 43 For a large class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word "meaning" it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language. And the meaning of a name is sometimes explained by pointing to its bearer.
The PI is opposed to Referentialism, whereby words refer to objects in the world. To be an object existing in the world in space and time it must have some kind of essence.
The PI proposes that the meaning of a word is its use in language, for example in the sentence "bring me a table". In this case, what is the essence of the word "table"? One possibility is that the essence of a word such as "table" is as a concept, something that only exists in the mind of the speaker of the language.
The observation that a particular use governs the meaning of a word does not cancel the fact that language is referring to entities and events we encounter in the world. It is that particularity that gives us confidence that such is the case. We can distinguish between cases.
To say: "And the meaning of a name is sometimes explained by pointing to its bearer", is to observe that some naming is sufficient through simple pointing ala Augustine. By arguing that we do not learn language that way is not an argument that what we talk about is not actually in the world we live in.
Saying objects "must have some kind of essence" is metaphysical supposition of the sort Kant said we could not confirm through experience. I don't think the discussion of meaning here is a part of that supposition.
Does the "object" also include mental objects such as fear, anger, pain, joy and hope ...etc? Or does it just mean material objects in the external world?
The key paragraph is PI 43 which says that the meaning of a word is its use in language. But what about the second part "And the meaning of a name is sometimes explained by pointing to its bearer.". Is this Wittgenstein accepting Referentialism - not at all.
PI 43 For a large class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word "meaning" it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language. And the meaning of a name is sometimes explained by pointing to its bearer.
PI 40 makes the point that the meaning of a word doesn't disappear if the object it is referring to disappears. IE, the meaning of a word doesn't depend on there being an object in the world. If the object Mr N N disappears, the word "Mr N N" still has meaning.
PI 40 Let us first discuss this point of the argument: that a word has no meaning if nothing corresponds to it.—It is important to note that the word "meaning" is being used illicitly if it is used to signify the thing that 'corresponds' to the word. That is to confound the meaning; of a name with the bearer of the name. When Mr. N. N. dies one says that the bearer of the name dies, not that the meaning dies. And it would be nonsensical to say that, for if the name ceased to have meaning it would make no sense to say "Mr. N. N. is dead."
Within the PI are sentences such as "bring me a slab". Wittgenstein is making the point in the PI that the word "slab" doesn't have meaning because it is referring to an object in the world, ie Referentialism, but in fact gets its meaning from how it used in language, which is a completely different thing.
As I see it, the whole point of the PI is in denying that any word gets its meaning from referring to objects in the world.
Quoting Luke
The child has a concept of "table", as only having four legs, and points to an example in the world of what it believes to be a table. Its parent may believe that the child's concept is wrong, as for the parent a "table" may have either three or four legs .
However, as far as the child is concerned, they are not wrong, in that they have pointed to an example of what they believe to be a "table".
This is the point of PI 246, in that if I have a pain, then I have a pain. There is no knowing that I have a pain. If I have concept, then I have a concept, right or wrong.
It can't be said of me at all (except perhaps as a joke) that I know I am in pain. What is it supposed to mean—except perhaps that I am in pain?
Right, but life with a child is not a matter of single examples.
Quoting RussellA
The child does not think in terms of 'family resemblance', but rather she learns which things are and are not called tables. It is only much later that she might ask what all these things have in common other than being tables. But whether such a question occurs to her or not, that is not how a language is learned or how it functions.
In Referentialism, the objects in the world are observable material things, including things such as mountains, trees, crying, wincing and other behaviours, but not internal sensations such as fear, anger, etc.
This is why the Logical Positivists liked Referentialism, in that it aimed at creating a "perfectly descriptive language purified from ambiguities and confusions" (Wikipedia, Direct Reference Theory).
Right, but then where did the internal states "go"? "What" were they for them? Why didn't they care?
Logical Positivism stated in the 1920's. Their central thesis was the verification principle, whereby only statements verifiable through direct observation or logical proof are meaningful in terms of conveying truth value, information or factual content (Wikipedia Logical Positivism).
It is probably not surprising that the movement came to an end in the 1960's, though they had a good run.
Yes, that is what seems to have happened more-or-less, but I was being rhetorical as to present what is problematic with these approaches in general. That whole "behaviorism" nonsense and the like. Or not accepting mental states of "ontologically" existing or some such. Weirdly non-commonsensical for a common sense-touting strand of thought.
In that case, would you not feel that referentialism and logical positivism are blind system? I mean, the world is not just material, but there are also mental sides too.
You talked about Five apples and Give me a slab scenario in the posts. Before you and I sit down face to face in between the actual apples and slabs, they are just mental objects whilst we talking about them. I have no clue what apples and which slab you are referring to.
Objects, entities and events exist in space and time in the world.
In the mind, the parts of objects, entities and events are connected within concepts.
In the world, what connects the parts of an object, entity or event into a whole? What in the world has judged that an apple sitting on a table is a different object to the table it is sitting upon?
If within the world, there is nothing that is able to judge which parts are connected and which aren't, then objects, entities and events cannot exist in the world.
I think it's important to understand that "analytic philosophy" is dominated by examining propositions (or in Wittgenstein's later idea "language games"). But that this is not the only way to "do" philosophy. One can approach it more holistically, from the stance of epistemological / metaphysical theory. Unfortunately, 20th century philosophy bifurcated philosophy into linguistic/logic/mathematical approaches which took discrete propositions and tried to answer them on one side and phenomenological approaches on the other (existentialism for example). Both sides have a problem with "everything is text" (in much different ways), with post-modernism and the "linguistic turn" (both very different methods but are similar in that they are caught up in language usage).
Yes. They ignored causation. If I see someone wince, I know that something has caused such pain behaviour, whether pain or acting. I may never know what, but I know that whatever caused the pain behaviour was real. I know rather than believe because of the principle of Innatism.
Quoting Corvus
I have learnt the concept of "apple" after seeing numerous examples of things in the world that have been named "apple" by my community. No two apples were the same, but they all shared a family resemblance.
On the table in front of me is a particular thing in space and time that shares a family resemblance with all the previous things I have seen in the world that have been named "apple" by my community.
For that reason, I call this particular thing in front of me an "apple", even though "apple" is a universal concept and the thing in front of me is only one particular example of it.
But that doesn't answer the metaphysical question of "what" is this concept apple. It is obviously a mental thing. What is that? Witt doesn't have an answer. "Family resemblances" just seems like formalized idea written down about something we intuitively know- that concepts are are not exacting but have resemblances. I don't think it added much except a neologism to a concept we already understand about how we use language. But what does it say about the problems of ontology, epistemology, and such? Very little.. which is my problem with it. It's like he's only talking to the formalists of language that were his contemporaries and his former ideas, but then doesn't really posit much with it. Yeah, that sort of logical positivistic "referentialism" is wrong, but that was a problem they created themselves. It's like.. okay, let's just go to the whole, philosophizing now that we cleared that up...
The great analytic philosophy vs continental philosophy divide.
My favourite city is Paris, and we always stay near the Left Bank, so perhaps I should be moving away from Wittgenstein and towards Sartre.
Analytic philosophy is still great for critical exercises. But if you are moving towards the continental philosophy, then Nietzsche, Schopenhauer, Heidegger, Sartre or even Deleuze are all great philosophers.
:up: :up:
It depends what you mean by "gets its meaning from". This seems to suggest that names have their meanings bestowed upon them by the objects they refer to; as if the object somehow gives the word its meaning, instead of those who use the word. I don't see how this would work. The point of PI 40 is that the users of the name give the name meaning, not the object or person to which the name refers. The meaning of the name does not cease to exist when the object or person ceases to exist. You also seem to have the impression that Wittgenstein's rejection of this view implies that words cannot refer to objects, but we obviously can and do sometimes use words to refer to objects. According to Wittgenstein, in many or most cases the meaning of a word is its use.
Quoting RussellA
Are you saying that there is no way to determine whether the parents or the child is correct? What if the child points to an apple or to the ceiling and says "table" because they believe they have pointed to an example of what they believe to be a table. Can we not correct the child?
Wittgenstein does not endorse this sort of relativism.
There are rules for the correct use of the word "table". If a child uses the word incorrectly, then we correct them.
Yes, Wittgenstein makes no attempt at coming up with an answer to the questions he raises. As he wrote in the Preface "After several unsuccessful attempts to weld my results together into such a whole, I realized that I should never succeed."
My understanding of a concept is as follows:
Suppose someone says "bring me an apple", and I have the concept of "apple". They are not asking to be brought the concept of an "apple", they are asking to be brought one particular physical instantiation of the concept "apple". They want to be brought one particular set of atoms existing in space and time.
After being shown many examples of things in the world that have been given the name "apple" by my community, I develop the concept of "apple". In part because between the many examples there has been some kind of family resemblance. All different, but also similar in some undefinable, intuitive way.
It is true that the term family resemblance doesn't explain anything substantive apart from the fact that the examples were all different but have some similarities, similarities that I cannot define but can only intuitively perceive
It seems to me that there are two types of concepts: compound and elementary.
Compound concepts are equivalent to knowledge by description, such as the concept "unicorn", which can only be known by description as "a mythical animal typically represented as a horse with a single straight horn projecting from its forehead". Compound concepts are sets of elementary concepts.
Elementary concepts are equivalent to knowledge by acquaintance, such as the colour red, a sweet taste, an acrid smell, a painful touch or a grating noise. Primitive sensations that have been directly caused by things in the world.
Compound concepts exist as sets of elementary concepts within language, whereas elementary concepts depend on information passing through the senses from the world into the mind.
The particular elementary concepts we happen to have is a function of 3.5 billion years of evolution of life in synergy with the word, as described by Enactivism. The particular compound concepts we have is a function of their use within our community and the world in general.
I think that is a very good idea. Wittgenstein is not for you.
In the words of Sun Tzu from The Art of War: “Know thy self, know thy enemy. A thousand battles, a thousand victories.”
Yes, that is Wittgenstein's position, in that the meaning of the word "slab" does not depend on there being a slab in the world.
Quoting Luke
It depends what you mean by "object". For the Nominalist, universal and abstract objects do not actually exist other than being merely names or labels. For the Platonic Realist, objects, entities and events exist in space and time in the world (Wikipedia - Nominalism).
If you are a Platonic Realist, then how to answer the following:
1) In the mind, the parts of objects, entities and events are connected within concepts.
2) In the world, what connects the parts of an object, entity or event into a whole? What in the world has judged that an apple sitting on a table is a different object to the table it is sitting upon?
3) If within the world, there is nothing that is able to judge which parts are connected and which aren't, then objects, entities and events cannot exist in the world.
Quoting Luke
Can you show me the rule for the correct use of the word "table"?
Witty is an interesting and significant philosopher, because the issues he had raised were compelling and important.
I used to read Witty with minor interest, peripheral significance, and not a great deal. But I will be reading him with more attention and focus.
He definitely has intriguing points, views and arguments in his philosophy . His weakness seems come from the inconsistency between TLP and PI, and his concept of words, objects and the world.
What does he say about God and religion? I am going to read about that topic in the near future.
I agree. I feel I have clarified my own ideas about language and the relationship between the mind and world by studying Wittgenstein. He did raise important issues. I'm not saying my interpretation is necessarily correct, but I feel I can justify it. One has to start somewhere.
As Nietzsche wrote in 1888: “Aus der Kriegsschule des Lebens, was mich nicht umbringt, macht mich stärker,” - “Out of life’s school of war, what doesn’t kill me, makes me stronger.”
That's true. The meaning of the word "slab" does not depend on the existence of slabs, as PI 40 indicates. Nevertheless, slabs exist in the world.
Quoting RussellA
Language users.
Quoting RussellA
Replace the word "game" with the word "table" in the above section. We don't need to draw any strict boundary for the concept to be usable (in language). But we can and might do so for a special purpose.
Quoting RussellA
No. But a child can be taught how to use the word correctly.
You write that "slabs exist in the world", and also write that there can be the word "slab" in language even if there is no slab in the world.
So what you are really saying is that "slabs exist in the world even if there is no slab in the world"
Quoting Luke
I agree, it is the human who judges that the something in the world is an object, not that the something in the world has a Platonic Form.
Quoting Luke
Yes, the meaning of a word such as "table" has no definite boundary, whereas some words such as 1 metre can be defined as being 100 centimetres.
Quoting Luke
There cannot be a correct use of a word such as "table". Within different contexts there are different sets of family resemblances. Is it correct to say that this is a "table"?
PI 217 - "How am I able to obey a rule?"—if this is not a question about causes, then it is about the justification for my following the rule in the way I do. If I have exhausted the justifications I have reached bedrock, and my spade is turned. Then I am inclined to say: "This is simply what I do."
Quoting schopenhauer1
Wittgenstein is responding to the historical status of philosophy in his time. However, the problem of appearances or “resemblances” has been an issue since Plato in the Theatetus. What he did was take the ordinary alignment between language and the world and our lives (that they are the same; that they operate without any concerns) and inserted a space between them, creating the necessity of a connection in order to make it fixed. Mostly this starts with an inability to reconcile moral or interpersonal issues, and then working backwards to try to be certain with the best case scenario, physical objects.
So doubt creates the framework of ontology, appearances, or something else (in Wittgenstein: the misinterpretation of “use” or forms of life or language games) to try to ensure our words are meaningful, to close the gap we created. Philosophy takes the limitations of knowledge and turns it into an underlying ever-present intellectual problem it feels it needs to “solve”, rather than a truth about our human condition that only raises it head when we “don’t know our way about”, and we become dissatisfied with our ordinary criteria.
So Wittgenstein is making explicit the criteria and activities we use about a bunch of different examples in order to show that our ordinary criteria are more complicated and it is not just a matter of solving a problem like “essence” or “meaning” with a different, better explanation. In the case of physical objects, there are many underlying activities and contexts that we skip over, such as: identification, pointing out an aspect, extrapolating from seen to unseen, our interests in that object, when it is out of place, scientific problems, differentiating from other objects, the stretching and extension of the criteria of identity and purpose thus our judgement of whether they are misapplied or broken, e.g., an ottoman is not a table but can be used for that purpose, or, part of or judgment of a “table” is where we gather with others to eat, so, even if it is around a rock, we would still say we are sitting around the “table”. This is not empirical or about the about, but is still normative, “real”, not “subjective”.
It just seems like not making any commitments and saying "language games" is akin to putting on a pair of sunglasses and posting an "office closed" sign with feet up on the desk and calling it a day. It's as if I asked you to show me the house you built, but instead, you not only not show me the house, you not only not show me the blueprints even, you talk to me about how the language is used to program the software that makes the blueprints. It's majorly trolling.
If I want to be real charitable to Witty, I would say that as long as you clarify what the language game is you are playing, then you can proceed to answer in your philosophical language game way. However, if it is just stalling and spinning in circles about language use, I just see it as a kind of long con trolling.
The rest of what you said, I'm not sure. Just philosophize or don't philosophize. If you have a problem with something X philosopher is saying, then critique that philosopher and explain how that philosopher is using the language game incorrectly, or whatnot. Otherwise, it is is a long elaboration on something without application. Rather, it is adherents (people perhaps as yourself and others on here) who apply it for him and thus it is always Wittgenstein-lite or Wittgenstein-inspired, but not really much commitments from Wittgenstein.
Quoting schopenhauer1
He is trying to find out why we want to create explanations, such as correspondence, forms, positivism, and, as I tried to say, your (and others) misreading that “language games” or “use” is a substitute for those (even if a failed one). I would take your requirement to having an explanation (a “commitment”) as the same desire for certainty for which Wittgenstein is trying to find a reason.
Also, as I said, this is not about language. He is looking at the things we say in a situation as a method and means for learning why philosophy ignores our ordinary criteria of judgment about the world to focus on a general explanation to ensure certainty. “Language use” is neither the issue nor a “solution”; it is a means of seeing the variety of what is meaningful rather than a single standard and explanation.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I remain willing to elaborate or answer questions but it’s fine if that is just an expression of a lack of interest.
The prophet for Wittgenstein... Then why doesn't he just say it thus? There is a point where "showing it and not saying it" becomes pedantically pedantic. Some explication is okay. Instead we have to have prophets who speak for Witty on this. As I said:
Quoting schopenhauer1
Quoting schopenhauer1
Quoting Antony Nickles
Huh? An author presumably is trying to convey "something". Perhaps they aren't explaining it clearly, but we try to interpret it correctly so that we can make judgements about agreement. Even "knowing" that there are various rules in various contexts, doesn't thus confer anything more than the usual of me just trying to interpret the person's philosophical statements. Perhaps they are using neologisms or not explaining their terms correctly, but that is a different issue. Or should I say, that is a meta-problem with the way the philosopher is communicating the ideas.. Perhaps they aren't playing the "language game" correctly in the philosophical context. But that simply takes clarification and some back-and-forth and attempts at understanding what is being conveyed.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Well there are times he addresses us directly but the point is for you to judge if you would agree with what is said in a situation, or agree that his explication of a context allows what is said to become understandable in a way other than the “philosophy” he is critiquing insists on. He is not trying to convey anything; he is trying to change how you think, get you to see yourself (as having the same desire he did). The investigation is to find out why we want what he wanted in the Tractatus, what Plato, Descartes, Kant, Hume, etc. wanted.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Well I would say criteria rather than rules (another day), but what you are meant to see is not (only) his descriptions, but to ask why the philosopher wants to overlook our ordinary criteria to substitute the sole standard of certainty or something certain (as metaphysics was). This I would say first takes letting go of the fixation that he is trying to (somehow alternatively) answer the problem the skeptic (or uncertainty) poses.
Is it? How do you know? There are smidgens of philosophers he sort of mentions but this seems very interpretive. More auguring.
Quoting Antony Nickles
But I don't see that as the case. And it's hard to "prove" he was really "saying that" being he didn't provide many historical examples.. I mean you can really cherry pick some Augustine and Frege every once in a while.. but not with what you said really as the topic (more just refuting referentialism in general).
But let's say that is what he was trying to say (because after all it's a method without much explication...), how does this really apply to the philosophers throughout history? He doesn't really explain again.. but I can say Plato was trying to figure out change and permanence, universals and particulars, things like this. Kant was trying to figure out empirical knowledge and a priori knowledge and how they fit together to understand the world, etc. I don't see that as major breakdowns in ordinary use of language. Rather it is constructing systems out of our ordinary language. As long as they try to define it so that the reader tries to understand their project, it doesn't seem a misuse of things.
Indeed it is to a degree. Or rather application of misguided use of language towards example philosophers that isn’t just adherents auguring.
The claim is not “interpretative”. It comes from a familiarity with the history of western analytical philosophy. The desire to solve skepticism is an ever-present theme.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Again, it’s not about language or language use. Skepticism starts with a case of not knowing what to do (#123). Kant and Plato find no satisfactory certainty to resolve it and so abstract from our ordinary cases to the forms or requiring imperatives having denied the thing-in-itself (“constructing systems” you say). It is this flight from ordinary criteria for how things work in a desire for certainty that concerns Wittgenstein.
“The preconceived idea of crystalline purity can only be removed by turning our whole examination round. (One might say: the axis of reference of our examination must be rotated, but about the fixed point of our real need.)” #108 He is turning the investigation around onto ourselves—why we have this delusional need for a standard of purity (certainty) that we create systems in advance of looking at the world.
Nietzsche and Wittgenstein share the goal of creating a new philosophy out of the old, and so are speaking to a new philosopher, one that you must become in order to see in a new way. These are not textbooks that say everything explicitly, only there to tell you information.
Eh, that's so vague though. Talk about language games! Plato's search for "Truth" and Kant's search for "reason" or "knowledge", or whatnot are in the same tradition, but are positing slightly different questions about ontology and epistemology. They come at it from different approaches. That is to say, "skepticism" is too broad a stroke there. Either way, my claim was if that was interpretive for what Witty was saying being that he doesn't outright say much of what he is doing but just ya know, "shows it".
Quoting Antony Nickles
Supposing he was directing his line of thought to philosophers like Plato (and not more contemporaries perhaps or his former beliefs), if the "language game" is thus defined appropriately, why would the abstractions not be helpful in conveying these new "concepts" about "reality"? An architect sees blueprints and he understands them because he has learned the art and science of reading blueprints. He has learned that synthetic language game. A musician learned notes in the diatonic scale and reading sheet music. Again, synthetic language. This is yet another set of synthetic terms and uses of those terms. But in this case, it is applied to ontological questions of being, knowing, and the like. They are ways of viewing the world (a worldview).
Quoting Antony Nickles
I don't even think that is the whole philosophical project, as I've stated. I think certainty has more to do with confidence in one's knowledge. I'd say something like Forms or the "Thing-in-Itself" or theories of understanding, are more about being, ontology, and the mechanisms of knowing.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Yeah, same reason I think I don't like either of them. It's vagueness is just enough to have a fanbase use it endless debates and they can then always say, "No, it REALLY means this...".
It just reminds of this:
Plato, Kant, Hume, Descartes, etc. are all reacting to skepticism, doubt in our knowledge. That’s not vague, it’s pervasive.
Quoting schopenhauer1
“Language game” is not a helpful term to latch onto; it confuses people. In an attempt at shorthand (which is never gonna work), abstraction removes any criteria and circumstances of an individual case of confusion and takes me out of the equation, along with my responsibility (in the fear of “subjectivity”). Our ordinary criteria are sufficient; it’s just hard for people to swallow that some of the time things just don’t work out the easy way, or at all.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Yes, that would be an ordinary sense of certainty. I am using it in the sense of a math-like necessity; Witt calls it “logic” or “crystalline purity”; Descartes will call it perfection; Plato just calls it knowledge. Basically it is the desire to know beforehand, generally, reliably, based on fact, without involving the human, etc. It is a standard invented by philosophy in an attempt to counteract skepticism.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Wittgenstein is getting at why they were created; it’s not a discussion of what they were about (the theories). I wouldn’t say Wittgenstein avoids existentialism (the creation of the self), ontology (essence), or knowing, but I don’t think you’d like his answers.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Just because you don’t get it yet doesn’t mean that it is “vague”. The writing is very specific, rigorous, and necessary for its purpose. Anybody that thinks they can tell you what it “means” is wrong (including me), thus the problem with summaries. I’m just trying to help you guys in reading it; to avoid its pitfalls. You have to figure it out for yourself (I mean I could walk you through it but again you seem like another thread would satisfy you more).
But this itself is a language game of how "certainty" is used. I'm going to push back that this as even appropriate to use for all of them, as they all had such differing approaches and asked slightly different questions. Descartes psychological approach (the cogito), Hume's outright "skeptical" empiricism, Kant's trying to solve some of Hume's skepticism, and Plato's Forms, are kind of their own thing and use their own approaches, and draw on different influences. Again, I think "certainty" is a misplaced word for what they were getting at. They use various methods for constructing metaphysics (Plato's Forms, Descartes' God, and Kant's Thing-in-Itself mainly), and epistemology (Descartes' cogito, Hume's impressions and habits of thought, and Kant's transcendental idealism, respectively). Certainty is something regarding confidence in one's judgements of knowledge. Certainty in Descartes would be a much different kind of thing then certainty in Plato, or even Kant. That is to say, certainty should just be replaced with for "constructions of epistemology and metaphysics". Indeed certain philosophers had more emphasis on "confidence of one's knowledge", but it's not always cut and dry that all of them emphasized these types of judgements of cases. And even then, only some of the time, were these philosophers concerned with specifically, "certainty".
Quoting Antony Nickles
Not sure what you're quite saying here.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Fine with me. Is all of philosophy logic? It is one approach to formalizing language. Aristotle used it for looking at classes and if things fit into classes and such. They were rhetorical devices that became more formalized over time. Frege, Russell, and many analytics began making it as if it can solve all problems related to propositions. So to me, it is still speaking to this main subset, more or less.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Ugh, this is the kind of presumption that I can't stand... As if "getting" Wittgenstein confers some apotheosis. But I still think it stands that if you want to be known, then say it. Show it after you say it. Or show it and then say it. There is a balance. All show and no tell, and now you are a prophet and others are doing your telling.
You really should stop using those words; that use insinuates triviality and that it’s just about language. This isn’t a debate on how certainty should be used. I’m using it as a term—I could spell it all out every time, but it seems pretty clear where it comes up in the PI. Different approaches, influences, methods don’t matter. They all had the same goal, to solve skepticism by having something foundational—call it “constructions of epistemology and metaphysics”.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Well that certainly makes it easy to clarify.
Quoting schopenhauer1
He’s not “showing” you rather than telling you—he’s asking for your approval: do you see what I see? He’s working out something nobody saw and you’re along for the ride; this is not something you can understand from your first impression or with it being spoon-fed to you, so quit letting people do that for you and figure it out if you want or get off the pot. It’s quite clear you don’t want my help.
That does not follow.
I said that the meaning of the word "slab" does not depend on the existence of slabs, just as the meaning of the word "unicorn" does not depend on the existence of unicorns. However, regardless of this fact about meaning, slabs do exist in the world.
Quoting RussellA
Then neither can there be an incorrect use of the word. It follows that there cannot be a correct or incorrect use of any word. But then language would be like a game of chess where each player makes up their own individual rules about what to do with the pieces. And that just means there wouldn't be any game of chess (or any language).
Quoting RussellA
That was the point of my quote of PI 69. You might say it's a table. There will always be borderline cases (in addition to more obvious and clear cut cases). This is a result of there being no strict definition (for most) of our words. Again:
We might agree (for some special purpose) that a table must have four legs and a table top, in which case the photo you posted would not count as a table. But unless we agree to something like this, then the concept of table has no clear boundary. Does this make the concept unusable? Not at all.
What is his view on mental objects such as fear, anger, joy, hope, doubt ...etc? What is his idea on existence of God?
As Wittgenstein writes in the Preface, a vagueness in the PI is inevitable, as he admits himself that he was unable to weld his results together.
Preface: After several unsuccessful attempts to weld my results together into such a whole, I realized that I should never succeed. The best that I could write would never be more than philosophical remarks; my thoughts were soon crippled if I tried to force them on in any single direction against their natural inclination
Wittgenstein in PI asks lots of questions, often without trying to answer them. For some of these questions it is also unclear whether he considers them valid or not, and I agree when you say "Anybody that thinks they can tell you what it “means” is wrong".
What status does a "table" have for me. It is an inseparable fusion of the concept "table" in the mind and a momentary set of atoms existing in the world in time and space. Both aspects are necessary. My position is that of Nominalism rather than Platonic Realism.
I wrote: "For that reason, I call this particular thing in front of me an "apple", even though "apple" is a universal concept and the thing in front of me is only one particular example of it".
As regards the empirical, our concept of "table" has originated from states of affairs in the world, an empirical discovery.
As regards the normative, the only standards placed on the meaning of the word have originated from the users of the language living within a community. IE, we do the ethical thing, not because it is required by the table, but because of the use we put the table to within the community within which we live.
As regards the real, our concepts are real in our mind and the atoms are real in the world.
As regards the subjective, only concepts in the mind can be subjective, in that tables cannot have concepts. Atoms (thought of as logical entities rather than existant things) in the world can only be objective, in that they would exist independent of any sentient observer.
There is nothing wrong with asking questions, whether "is my pain the same as yours" or "how far is it from the Earth to the Moon", but humans can only learn when they try to answer these questions. Only by theorising can we make progress, as science has clearly shown.
This weeks comic ha. Very appropriate.
https://existentialcomics.com/comic/516
[b]1) "the meaning of the word "slab" does not depend on the existence of slabs"
2) "slabs do exist in the world"[/b]
Sentence 1)
As the word "slab" does not depend on the existence of slabs in the world, there can be the word "slab" in language whether or not there are slabs in the world. Therefore, the word "slab" in language cannot be referring to something in the world. If the word "slab" did refer to something in the world, then, if there was no slab in the world then there would be no word "slab" in language, but that is not the case.
Sentence 2)
There are two logical parts to the sentence "slabs do exist in the world". Part i) there are things that are named "slabs" and part ii) these things exist in the world. Within the sentence, the things named "slabs" refer to the things that exist in the world.
Sentences 1) and 2) are contradictory, in that in sentence 1) the word "slab" doesn't refer to a thing in the world but in sentence 2) the word "slab" does refer to a thing in the world.
Sentence 1) encapsulates the core of the PI in that the meaning of a word is its use in language.
PI 43 For a large class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word "meaning" it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language. And the meaning of a name is sometimes explained by pointing to its bearer.
Sentence 2) is the position of Referentialism that Wittgenstein is opposing.
PI 2 . That philosophical concept of meaning has its place in a primitive idea of the way language functions. But one can also say that it is the idea of a language more primitive than ours. Let us imagine a language for which the description given by Augustine is right. The language is meant to serve for communication between a builder A and an assistant B. A is building with buildingstones: there are blocks, pillars, slabs and beams. B has to pass the stones, and that in the order in which A needs them. For this purpose they use a language consisting of the words "block", "pillar", "slab", "beam". A calls them out;—B brings the stone which he has learnt to bring at such-and-such a call.——Conceive this as a complete primitive language
If only PI 43 subsection A had been "For that reason, I call this thing in front of me an "apple", even though "apple" is a universal concept and the thing in front of me is only one particular example of it".
There would then have been no hesitancy within society in calling the emperor "naked", in seeing one particular example of nakedness in front of them.
The meaning of the word 'slab' in the builder's language depends on two things:
1. The existence of these objects.
2. What the assistant is to do with them.
The meaning is not the name of the object.
How does that follow? You say that there can be the word "slab" in language whether or not there are slabs in the world (i.e. whether there are slabs in the world or not). Do you think this implies that there are not slabs in the world? Or, why do you say the word "slab" can't be used to refer to something in the world?
Quoting RussellA
Try the same with the word "unicorn". If the word "unicorn" did refer to something in the world, then, if there was no unicorn in the world then there would be no word "unicorn" in language. Since there is the word "unicorn" in language, then there must be a unicorn in the world. This is the absurd consequence of your argument.
Quoting RussellA
The word "slab" does refer to a thing in the world. However, the meaning of the word "slab" does not depend on the existence of any slabs. This is no different to the word "unicorn" or the name of Wittgenstein's deceased "Mr. N.N."
Quoting RussellA
Yes, except you mistakenly believe this implies that words cannot be used to refer to objects in the world.
The word "slab" can be used to refer to either an existing or to a non-existing slab. The only difference is whether the slab exists.
So how does one use Wittgenstein's "revelation" (the common sense notion that we already knew that a words meaning changes with context) pertain to such things as to "what exists" (ontology)? I just think this is treading the same ground over and over. Unless this thesis is used to actually "mine" some philosophical concepts, what is the use of pouring over this?
If your answer is, "We can't because language games", I'm going to (metaphorically) scream. See my post here for more elaboration:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/839003
As the meaning of "unicorn" in language doesn't depend on the existence of a unicorn in the world, then why should the meaning of "slab" in language depend on the existence of a slab in the world?
Even assuming "bring me slab" is referring to an object in the world, what kind of object is being referred to in the Philosophical Investigations. An object as determined by Nominalism or an object as determined by Platonic Realism?
Quoting Fooloso4
That's how I understand Wittgenstein in the PI, whereby meaning is use in language, in opposition to Augustine's Referentialism.
PI 43 For a large class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word "meaning" it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language. And the meaning of a name is sometimes explained by pointing to its bearer.
Presumably, someone might say the "pointing to its bearer" is a function to help the person get a sense of its "use" (i.e. the word refers to that object). In a different language game, perhaps that same word would not need an ostensive pointing. For example, a whatchamacallit might be some yellow button. Someone points and says "whatchamacallit". You start referring to it as a watchamacallit. Then, someone yells "whatchmacallit!". You are in some job that requires you push that yellow button when they shout the name like that. So now "whatchamacallit" means "press the yellow button referred to as watchmacallit". So ostensive pointing to an object is simply one mechanism of teaching use, it doesn't replace use.
Now, let's say the "whatchamacallit" yellow button was a mystery as to what it did. The crew had no idea what it's function was other than they needed to push it as part of their job. The work crew starts replacing the word "mystery" with watchmacallit". So now crewmembers say things like, "Life is a big watchamacallit" (mystery). Now its use has changed. In the language game of the crew, this makes sense. The small crew of 10 people think it means "yellow button" and "mystery". The wider company only knows it as the "yellow button". People outside of the company don't attach any meaning to that word.
Interestingly, this follows a path of causality leading to a modal theory of reference (pace Kripke).
Whatever one might mean when uttering the word 'slab', it has a specific meaning in the builder's language game. In that game 'slab' gets its meaning from its role in the activity of building. They are not building with unicorns or other imaginary objects. "Unicorn" has no place or role or function in this game. It is a complete but limited language.
Quoting RussellA
Several objects are referred to in the PI.
See my response here. I think this helps illustrate it:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/839179
If you are trying to get ontological commitments from PI, you won't find any as far as I see. Besides that meaning of words comes from language games, you won't find much ontologically-speaking. If you think that is a lame cop out, then I agree. It's basically up to his disciples to figure out a "use" for the language game idea for actual philosophical commitments and jumping off points I guess.
PI 40 reads that a word such as "slab" doesn't get its meaning from corresponding with a slab in the world, as the word "Mr N N" doesn't get its meaning from corresponding with a Mr N N in the world.
PI 40 Let us first discuss this point of the argument: that a word has no meaning if nothing corresponds to it.—It is important to note that the word "meaning" is being used illicitly if it is used to signify the thing that 'corresponds' to the word. That is to confound the meaning; of a name with the bearer of the name. When Mr. N. N. dies one says that the bearer of the name dies, not that the meaning dies. And it would be nonsensical to say that, for if the name ceased to have meaning it would make no sense to say "Mr. N. N. is dead."
For the word "slab" to correspond with the object slab, then the word is "pointing" at the object.
As this is at odds with the last sentence in PI 43, I assume the last sentence of PI 43 about pointing is that of the interlocutor. The last sentence of PI 43 about "pointing" seems something a supporter of Augustine's Referentialism would say.
PI 43 For a large class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word "meaning" it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language. And the meaning of a name is sometimes explained by pointing to its bearer.
Yes, it is very difficult to make sense of the PI when we don't even know whether the objects he refers to, such as slabs, are those of the Nominalist or the Platonic Realist.
Can’t it mean physically pointing to an object?
And I don’t even think he cares about the question. The flock of disciples will then in unison say “because you can’t” or some such.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I guess what I’m saying is the object itself falls out perhaps. Whatever the object is, it’s a way to help define meaning. And that’s its importance in language meaning. The object’s only relevance here is its use in defining meaning.
But I agree, Witt seems to have a problem making ontological claims, especially as to the status of objects. This is why it seems pedantic to provide examples of how language meaning comes from language games but then not do much else with it.
The word has a specific meaning in the builder's language game. That does not translate to how it might be used elsewhere.
Imagine the builder pointing to a slab and saying slab. His helper now points to the slab and says slab. We might call this the "pointing language game or maybe the "name game". It cannot be called the 'builder's language game". What is the point of all this pointing?
PI 43 For a large class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word "meaning" it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language. And the meaning of a name is sometimes explained by pointing to its bearer.
Philip Cartright in a blog on PI makes the case that although Wittgenstein appears to write that the word "slab" gets its meaning from pointing at a slab, this is not promoting an Augustinian Referentialism.
The word "slab" has a use in the language game because the object slab has a use in the world. If there was no use for an object such as a slab in the world, then it wouldn't be given a name in language. Even if an object doesn't have a actual present use, it will be named as long as it has a potential future use.
I can learn the names of objects that have no actual present use, on the proviso that there is an understanding that they have a potential future use.
In a sense, the word "slab" is not pointing to a slab, as in Referentionalism, rather it is pointing to either an actual or potential use that is borne by the slab, as in "meaning is use".
Yes, this accords more or less with what I said here
Quoting schopenhauer1
Yes, as private sensations such as pain drop out of consideration in the language game, as with the beetle in PI 293, objects in the world also drop out of consideration in the language game, as it is the use of objects we are interested in, not the object in itself.
Yep. But then it goes back to this:
Quoting schopenhauer1
If I asked you to show me the video game and you constantly referred me back to how you used the code to create the game OR you showed me how you interact with the game using a controller and where people sit in relation to the game, BUT YOU FAIL TO SHOW ME THE GAME ITSELF, something is missing. You have given me the meta-rules of the game perhaps, but you have not given me any commitments on the game itself.
This is not “vagueness”. It is a realization that there is no general explanation of “meaning” or “solution” to skepticism. He comes at it from multiple angles to understand how the desire for purity affects different areas of our lives.
Quoting RussellA
He does test hypotheses, but you may be confusing the role of the “interlocutor” who represents and expresses the embodiment of the desire for purity (what motivated the Tractatus and the picture of the world that created).
Quoting RussellA
I don’t say this to imply there isn’t something clear, specific, rigorous, etc. But just that narrowing it down to positions and statements that we can tell someone misses the point that he is doing something by a certain method which you must participate in to have it become meaningful to you.
Quoting RussellA
Wittgenstein focuses on our criteria for judging identity in the case of tables (and objects) but also not a generalized “concept” (I assume some kind of universal or idea) separate from the world. I would move to more complicated activities that he discusses because the case of physical objects makes it too easy to stay stuck in the picture Wittgenstein is trying to broaden. Below are other activities that Wittgenstein groups together under his unique term “concepts” (not the historical philosophical use of concept as idea). See p. 200 about material objects especially.
-of game, 71, 75, 135
- of a material object, p. 200
- of mathematical certainty, p. 225
- of (noticing) an aspect, pp. 193, 213
of number, 67, 135
- of order, 345
- of pain, 282, 384
- of proposition, 136
- of saying inwardly, p. 220
- of seeing, pp. 200, 209
-s of sensation, p. 209
understanding, 532
It is these kinds of things we do where he gets into how things go sideways or when we bump up against limits of an activity or when we don’t know our way about in an activity in a new context:
teaching, learning -s, 208, 384
use of a -, 82; p. 209
- with blurred edges, 71, 76
direct interest, 570
extending a -, 67
Also this ties to the criteria for judging our lives (concepts). Below is another list of concepts he looks at (under “criteria” in the index).
- for a dream, pp. 222-3
- for an experience, 509, 542; p. 198
- of guessing thoughts right, p. 222
- of having an opinion, 573
- identifying my sensation, 290
- of identity, sameness, 253, 288, 322, 376-7,
404
- ofimage, 239
- of intended projection's coming before
one's mind, 141
-of learning a shape, p. 185
- for looking without seeing, p. 211
- for mastering the series ofnatural numbers,
185
- for matter of course, 238
- of meaning, 190, 692
- of mistake, 51
-of reading, 159-60, 164
- of remembering right, 56
-of state of mind, 149, 572-3 -and symptoms, 354
- of talking to onself, 344
- for temporality of thought, 633
- of understanding, 146, 182, 269
Quoting RussellA
The desire for purity Wittgenstein is investigating is the same as the desire for everything (all our activities) to meet the criteria for science; that expectation of predictability, repeatability, generality, abstraction from a situation, resolution, agreement, etc., and such that it should have nothing to do with my ongoing responsibility (anyone can do science and come to the same conclusion). But philosophy is not science; it has other satisfactions, e.g., its progress is understanding ourselves and the conditions (and limitations) of being human.
I think aphorism is a misscharacterization. They are not meant as individual (independent) statements of something he is arguing is true. He does make statements, but they are speculative (like a hypothesis) with the purpose of your coming to the same conclusion on your own, seeing the viewpoint of why he is pointing this out in the context of the rest of the book. I would say they are hard to understand because they require you to change yourself in order to see the way he is looking at things. Removed from his process, they are easy to take in multiple ways.
Quoting Corvus
He is trying to find out why we want feelings to be objects. He does not address the argument for the existence of God other than looking at the same desire of why Descartes looked to God for the purpose of having something fixed, universal, perfect, as Wittgenstein equates with purity as a goal and standard for knowledge.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I get how this would be funny, but it is not accurate or helpful for either Nietzsche or Wittgenstein. I would point out a few things because the comic makes assumptions that are common misunderstandings.
Wittgenstein is not denying “truth” but only saying we have different criteria for judging what truth does in different areas of our lives, and they are not all pure like we want a certain picture of truth to be (like math).
He is not isolating us to language removed from the world. It is through the method of looking at language that he is investigating why we misconceive the world, as they are the normally the same (until we have a situation in time when that falls apart—we don’t know our way about).
Our ordinary criteria are not based on agreement, nor statistical majority (this is not a defense of common sense or “ordinary people”), but the way our lives have aligned over our history, that we would judge things using the same criteria, usually come to same conclusions, respond the same way, have the same expectations, understand the same implications. These are not rules, nor usually explicit. It is the same basis that allows each of us the ability to evaluate his claims of what we say when, to see for yourself.
See this is all meaningless to me. In 1-3 sentences, explain to me what Wittgenstein's views of metaphysics, epistemology, and ethics are. If you cannot tell me, then we are treading water. I can make balloon animals for you as a response to a question, but it's not getting anywhere. I can then tell you, "You don't get it" and we would not be getting anywhere.
But don’t worry what I do get is Witt thought we shouldn’t try to philosophize about these things as there is no certainty. I just think that doesn’t follow. We may be open to various systems. No system is going to give me slam dunk certainty. But I, like many others don’t need Witts language game idea and examples to understand that.
But wait, there’s more..cause there is a subgroup that tried to assign preciseness to language in such a way- early analytics like Russell and Frege. Well, that’s a small subset of philosophers that this would then be aimed at. It becomes less relevant for those who never held that view in the first place.
I’m pretty sure you’ll say this won’t mean anything to you either, however, you would interpret that as a refusal to be intelligible. That being said, your backcover, Wikipedia blurb would be: metaphysics is a fantasy created by our desire to fix the limitations of knowledge, which, epistemologically, is not our only relation to the world, and, ethically, this means it is our responsibility beyond knowledge to respond to the world and be accountable for what we do.
Before you condescend to me again, you (and I hate to say, perhaps @Banno) may want to consider your criticism that Wittgenstein is unintelligible might have more to do with your unwillingness to see it on any other terms than what you want. As he would say: your predetermined requirement makes anything that meets it empty (#107)
Quoting schopenhauer1
That’s the wrong takeaway. He is “philosophizing” it’s just a different method and not driven by the desire to resolve skepticism with a”system” (rather than understanding our ongoing part), as classical philosophy was, and, frankly, as is most of today’s “philosophy”. I’m afraid none of this is going to help you. I can only suggest re-reading the book and attempt to see it as a journey of discovery about your insistence (which I would think equates with the Interlocutor at times, as does @RussellA). It might help to read the section by Cavell I attached previously at p. 56 on Wittgenstein’s method “The relevance of the appeal to everyday language” on through “The knowledge of our language” and “The style of the Investigations”. Good luck.
Of course someone who cannot see the duck for the rabbit will become frustrated when the conversation moves on to other examples of ambiguous figures. But equally, folk who can see the duck rabbit will want to move away from conversations about eyes and bills. This once promising thread is mired in the misunderstanding of a small few.
But that's how the forums work.
As for seeing Wittgenstein in different ways, there's a long overdue thread on Moyal-Sharrock's Understanding Wittgenstein’s On Certainty that should be started. Have you read it?
I have come across some commentators sayings on Wittgenstein's writing being aphoristic, which I agreed with after reading some of his original texts such as TLP and PI.
The first sentence of TLP starts with a declarative type of sentence "The world is all that is the case."
and then it goes on, "The world is the totality of facts, not of things." They are quite unusual writing styles for philosophical texts, which can only be described as aphoristic.
Of course Witt makes his points in his writings, and it is not all 100% aphoristic writing style which fills his books, but we cannot help, but notice the writing style throughout his main books both in TLP and PI.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Witt didn't seem deny the existence of God from this passage in TLP.
"6.432 How things are in the world is a matter of complete indifference for what is higher. God does not reveal himself in the world." - TLP
I am not sure which God he was referring to here, but it seems he is admitting the existence of God, and also seems saying God cannot be known by human reason or perception. Could it be the similar stance as Kant's concept of God, which belongs to Thing-In-Itself in CPR?
I have been trying to take another run at On Certainty but @Sam26 is way ahead of my understanding so I’ve been reluctant to weigh in (I don’t want to get things mired in a need to clarify or a disagreement about conclusions I don’t really have enough knowledge or experience on which to have a legitimate opinion). I have read the first third of that book probably four different times. I am thinking of skipping to the last dates he addressed the topic which is a certain section of the end of the book.
I will order the Moyal. I am curious about the structure and role of the “hinge”. I have found people are under the impression that the situations put forward in On Certainty are to somehow negate the realization of the investigations, or to replace metaphysics rather than simply examining our ordinary criteria for certainty, much as Austin would flesh out a topic systematically. Of course I have nothing to base that on but what amounts to philosophical gossip.
This is misleading. He talks about usage of language (apples, and brake-levers oh my). He is giving examples of various uses of language, not ontological claims about the world. And so...
Quoting Banno
Well yeah and I said as much why I don't like it in my previous posts. No need for me to repeat them.
Yep.
But you will.
The TLP are more “aphorisms” but I would also not try to make sense of them outside the context of the rest of the work. What he wanted in the TLP was only things that he could be absolutely sure of, so his statements are meant to move forward building on his absolute certainty of each thing. In the PI everything is more a description he is asking if you see too.
I agree that the style of the Investigations is unique and I believe it is important to his method. I would recommend reading the Cavell essay I attached above, maybe just starting on p. 56.
I don’t have anything more on his thoughts on God.
I also ordered Moyal’s 2021 book Certainty in Action.
The impreciseness of language does not negate the attempt at understanding the world. It does not mean to close up shop. It certainly helps illustrate logical atomism's failing in its attempt for preciseness and its trapping itself in "what exists" and "what doesn't exist" and such.
The word "unicorn" in language cannot refer to something in the world, as no unicorns exist in the world. But rather, the word "unicorn" refers to other words in the language, as in "a mythical animal typically represented as a horse with a single straight horn projecting from its forehead"
It remains a fact that if the word "unicorn " in language depends on its existence on the fact of there being a unicorn in the world, then the word "unicorn" would not exist. However, this is not the case, as the word "unicorn" in language depends on its existence on other words within the language.
Wittgenstein opposes Augustine's theory of Referentialism, which he describes in in PI 2. He sets out his theory that meaning is use in language in PI 43. He proposes that Referentialism is an incomplete theory, in that whilst it may be able to explain the meaning of a word such as "slab" it is not able to explain the meaning of a word such as "slab!". His theory that meaning is use in language, he believes, can, however, explain the meaning of both "slab" and "slab!"
Within his theory that meaning is use in language, in the sentence "bring me the slab", the word "slab" is not being used, as it would be in Referentialism, in naming a slab in the world, but is being used in the sense of meaning is use in language
It would not make sense for Wittgenstein to be in opposition to Referentialism, but then use the word "slab" to name a slab in the world. His own theory that meaning is use in language is more than adequate, he believes (using "believes" as a figure of speech, as who knows what Wittgenstein really believed), to explain that the meaning of "slab" is its use in language, not as naming a slab in the world.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Quoting Antony Nickles
Taking a few references at random, it does not seem to be the case that it is the reader's problem that they have difficulty in understanding Wittgenstein's writings, but rather the responsibility lies with Wittgenstein himself.
As Wittgenstein himself wrote in the Preface to PI
After several unsuccessful attempts to weld my results together into such a whole, I realized that I should never succeed. The best that I could write would never be more than philosophical remarks; my thoughts were soon crippled if I tried to force them on in any single direction against their natural inclination
SEP - Ludwig Wittgenstein
Furthermore, a central factor in investigating Wittgenstein’s works is the multifarious nature of the project of interpreting them; this leads to untold difficulties in the ascertainment of his philosophical substance and method.
Philip Cartright's article on Philosophical Investigations
All I can say is that I’ve been studying Wittgenstein on and off for over twenty years and I still sometimes find myself falling into the same old traps. It is a comfort, however, to realise that Wittgenstein himself seems to have had a similar problem. Again and again in his later works he complains about how hard it is “to keep our heads above water” (§106) and only days before his death he commented “I do philosophy now like an old woman who is always mislaying something and having to look for it again; now her spectacles, now her keys” (On Certainty, §532).
IEP - Ludwig Wittgenstein
Wittgenstein is thus a doubly key figure in the development and history of analytic philosophy, but he has become rather unfashionable because of his anti-theoretical, anti-scientism stance, because of the difficulty of his work, and perhaps also because he has been little understood.
Masahiro Oku Osaka University, Japan
Wittgenstein's Philosophical Investigations is notoriously difficult to understand.
— Culture and Value
— Culture and Value
— Culture and Value
The word "unicorn" refers to the definition of the word "unicorn"? Why don't all words do this?
Quoting RussellA
If the existence of the word is dependent upon the existence of the object, that may be true. However, you said earlier that the existence of the word is dependent upon the word referring to the object. If that were true then we could no longer speak about any extinct animal for the names of those animals would no longer exist.
Quoting RussellA
What do you think the difference is? If meaning is use in language, then the word has to be used in some way. What other use does the word have if it is not being used to refer to an object in the world?
You say here that the word "is being used in the sense of meaning is use in language". But that is not a specific use a word can have; it's a general phrase about what gives any word its meaning. What you have said is similar to: "this word is being used to get its meaning from its use", which is circular. Wittgenstein gives various examples of different uses of language at PI 23.
Quoting RussellA
To repeat, Wittgenstein opposes Referentialism because it views reference as the only use that words can have. His opposition does not imply that words cannot be used to refer; only that they have more uses than this.
I see Witt's style in PI as a sort of "confounding" affect/effect. I can't say if it is intentional, but it is the way the text is laid out. He generally starts out as the "interlocutor" in quotations, sort of like his "demon" presenting various absolute cases of language use (very Socrates-like) and then Witt goes on to prove that absolute case is not as absolute upon further reflection. This goes on and on, until the reader is to feel a sort of wary defeat at the end, that perhaps the author is correct, that word meaning and concepts can only ever be "family resemblances" and never "pinned down" to this or that theory/definition of meaning. Thus language is an ever-evolving language game. Many times meaning is at odds with its own definition, with the audience's definition, and perhaps the speaker himself is mistaken of his own definition. Witt shows various examples of this.
The problem is not so much Witt himself. I think he does a good job demonstrating the inanity of pinning down exactly "what" a theory of meaning can even be. However, it's not his demonstration that I have a problem with. It's what he, or more importantly, his admirers do with this definition. That is to say, does this mean all theorizing stops now because, welp, it's just language games? I think the next move is to present his idea of "No wait, he gives you an out! He gives us the idea of Forms of Life!". But that then seems to indicate all we can do is study the community of language users and their use of words, and not the concepts themselves.
This then leads me to think Witt can represent a sort of "Radagast" philosophy. What do I mean by that? Well, Radagast the Brown was the wizard in Tolkien's Lord of the Rings who became enamored with the flora and fauna of Middle Earth and in being so focused on these, became disinterested in the broader doings and goings on of Middle Earth. He got caught in the "web of ecology" of the animals and such, but never paid mind to any broader mission. Well, if Witt represents being "caught in the web of ecology" of word use and not about understanding things like the "human condition, ethical implications, suffering, what is, what should, what ought, what can, by what criteria, etc." then one isn't really practicing philosophy so much anymore, but hovering around the edges of meta-philosophy about how word usage makes it impossible. Thus, I see it as a great tool against a particular set of beliefs (logical positivism / logical atomism / certain kinds of logicians in general), but if applied to philosophy as a whole, I think it becomes an excuse to not engage in understanding these broader questions or an excuse to deflate any philosophical inquiry or solution to inquiry as futile attempts.
In Philosophy, some questions are more important than others
Yes, it's as if I asked Wittgenstein how to get to Paris and rather than say that he didn't know, responded with innumerable questions, such as: Is my Paris better than your Lyon? Why does Paris exist? Why is it that Paris is north of Lyon? When did you first want to go to Paris? Who is the Parisian most influential in ballet? Which Parisian can make the best fruitcake?
All well and good, but what one really wants is "take the Eurostar leaving St Pancras at 10.31 tomorrow".
Bertrand Russell in The Problems of Philosophy did wrote that the role of Philosophy is to ask questions, not for any definite answer, but for the sake of the questions themselves as they open the mind to possibilities greater than we previously imagined.
Thus, to sum up our discussion of the value of philosophy; Philosophy is to be studied, not for the sake of any definite answers to its questions, since no definite answers can, as a rule, be known to be true, but rather for the sake of the questions themselves; because these questions enlarge our conception of what is possible, enrich our intellectual imagination and diminish the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against speculation; but above all because, through the greatness of the universe which philosophy contemplates, the mind also is rendered great, and becomes capable of that union with the universe which constitutes its highest good.
Yes, the role of Philosophy is to ask questions, but not asking questions for the sake of asking questions without any underlying direction. But rather it is broader than that, as in questioning theories developed by such questions. For example: What value does the theory of Referentialism have? Does Wittgenstein's theory that the meaning of words is their use in language help our understanding of the nature of language?
There is a quantitative difference between asking questions for their own sake and questioning theories.
There are similarities between Indirect Realism and the meaning of a word is its use in language
I wrote "Yes, as private sensations such as pain drop out of consideration in the language game, as with the beetle in PI 293, objects in the world also drop out of consideration in the language game, as it is the use of objects we are interested in, not the object in itself."
When someone says "bring me a slab", what is the meaning of the word "slab"? Referentialism is initially easier to understand, in that the "word "slab" corresponds with a slab in the world, and someone can literally point the slab out to you. The theory is problematic, however, with words such as unicorn or pain.
Then how does Wittgenstein's alternative theory that the meaning of a word is its use in language work?
In PI 293 is the analogy of the beetle that drops out of consideration in language. This allows us to talk about "pain" without either me knowing your pain or you knowing my pain. The word "pain" in language doesn't refer to any private sensation of pain, but does refer to pain behaviour, in that we never attribute pain to a rock because rocks never exhibit pain behaviour. If a rock did start to exhibit pain behaviour, then we would probably start to attribute pain to them.
Similarly, when we talk about "slabs" in language, the slab in the world has dropped out of consideration in the language game. This is the position of the Indirect Realist, which, according to the Wikipedia article on Direct and Indirect Realism is the view of perception that subjects do not experience the external world as it really is, but perceive it through the lens of a conceptual framework. We can only ever perceive a picture of a slab, we can never directly perceive the slab itself.
As in language, the word "pain" directly refers to pain behaviour and only indirectly to the cause of the pain behaviour, the word "slab" directly refers to the representation of a slab and only indirectly to the cause of the representation of a slab
There are other examples of cause being conflated with effect. As regards the senses, if I see the colour green, I name its cause as being green. If I hear a grating noise, I name its cause as being grating. If I smell an acrid smell, I name its cause as being acrid. If I feel something silky, I name is cause as being silky. If I taste something bitter, I name its cause as being bitter. As regards objects and their use, a hammer hammers. A pincer pinces. Rain rains. Water waters.
It is the case that in cognition the unknown cause is named after the known effect. Rather than saying "I see your pain behaviour", this is replaced by the figure of speech "I see your pain", conflating the unknown cause "pain" with the known effect "pain behaviour". Similarly, rather than saying "I see a representation of a slab", this is replaced by the figure of speech "I see a slab", conflating the unknown cause slab with the known effect of a representation of a slab.
We directly perceive representations, which have been caused by unknown things in the world. We can give a particular perception a name, such as "slab". By conflating cause with effect, we can then say that the unknown cause in the world is also a slab. The word "slab" gets its meaning from naming a particular perception in the mind, not from naming an unknown thing in the world.
In this sense, the meaning of a word does not come from naming an object in the world, but does come from naming our perception of an unknown something in the world.
I'll respond to this too, but see my above post too as I think you might find it interesting:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/839480
:lol: :up: Exactly. I will now dub this "Radagasting" (see my post above for why).
Quoting RussellA
:100: :fire: . Yes, you hit the nail here. Demonstration without any exposition is impotent. And if you say, "my demonstration is all that I have", then you deem yourself a prophet and others have to "augur" the implications for broader use. I am generally repulsed by such an approach because it deigns of as "above the fray of having to explain". And to then go back and say, "well, my philosophy can never truly be explained because it's all about how things can't truly be explained.. see how clever that is!" is about as eye rolling as a hipster in a coffee shop trying to convince you of some hidden meaning in some inane obscure band.
That reminds of a joke:
"How many hipsters does it take to screw in a lightbulb?"
[hide="Reveal"]"Oh, you wouldn't know. The number is pretty obscure. You've probably never heard of it."[/hide]
As @Banno wrote a while ago: I haven't paid this thread much attention, because definitions are not all that helpful, but further, any definition of art will immediately encourage any sensible artist to produce something that does not meet that definition.
Quoting Luke
We only know the "unicorn" by description, not acquaintance. Apart from a few people who have directly seen the fossil of a Tyrannosaurus Rex, most people only know about dinosaurs by description, not acquaintance, as "one of the most ferocious predators to ever walk the Earth. With a massive body, sharp teeth, and jaws so powerful they could crush a car, this famous carnivore dominated the forested river valleys in western North America during the late Cretaceous period, 68 million years ago."
Quoting Luke
Totally agree. I have been trying to get across the idea for weeks that Wittgenstein's theory that meaning is use in language is circular, as I wrote before:
If meaning as use means use in language, then this is unworkable because of the circularity problem. If meaning as use means use in the world, then this is workable, as the only use of language is to change facts in the world. Language gets its meaning from being able to change facts in the world.
Quoting Luke
His theory that the meaning of a word is its use in language requires that words cannot refer to objects in the world.
All good stuff there, but I'm just going to pick this out. So my question is, do you think that Witt cares so much about behavior or context within a community? This idea you have might be conflating the two. Pain loses meaning not necessarily when due to an undefined behavior, so much as an undefined context perhaps, according to Witt.
So if we split it up we have:
1) Pain as felt (the sensation of pain)
2) Pain as behavior (the behaviors associated with pain)
3) Pain in context (the associated uses of pain in the context of a community)
It is 3 that Witt seems to attribute the source of meaning. So I see where you are coming from, but perhaps change 2 to 3. That is to say, meaning can never be attributed to some direct correlation to pain itself, but to how it is used in a community or in a context of a certain language game within a community. You can only understand this by understanding the community's use of the word. But even then, if you wrote a definition down, you'd have to realize it's "fuzzy" and could change with its usage.
It's quite isolating though. You are left with your private sensation of pain, and the word pain just becomes this epiphenomenal construction. Also a problem I see here, is that it's hard to see if there is any criteria for anything here. I would normally say the closest epistemology for criteria of meaning would be pragmaticism. In other words, did the usage "get something done in a particular way", but I don't think Witt is saying that either because that has sort of a telos to it (did this usage get this thing accomplished). I don't think he is saying that either necessarily.
I can relate that it is hard to see why it is written this way. First, it is a realization so only you can come to it on your own; understanding is not possible without inner change. Also, yes, skepticism is not a matter to be solved and understood; it is an ongoing threat which recurres in the moral realm, and so each situation can require seeing the temptation to abstract and working through it by explicating our ordinary criteria and the context in a situation. Even Hume and Descartes struggled.
Quoting Descartes, end of 1st meditation
I hope not being able to have it straightforward won’t deter you from humbly doing the work first before passing judgment. Did you read the Cavell I suggested (attached above starting at p 56?)
Technically, you should say that most people only know about dinosaur fossils by description, not by acquaintance. I don't believe anyone knows about dinosaurs by acquaintance; not the extinct ones anyway. You claimed earlier that if a word did not refer to an object then the word would not exist. That's clearly not true in the case of (extinct) dinosaurs.
Quoting RussellA
I know you have, but you're mistaken. As I mentioned, Wittgenstein cites examples of different uses of language at PI 23. He is not saying "the use of a word is meaning is use", as you seem to think. He offers some examples of the different types of uses of language. To quote one of these several examples, a word or sentence could be used for "Requesting, thanking, cursing, greeting," to name just a few. These alternative uses of language alone falsify the assertion that language is only used to refer to objects.
Not sure if you are familiar with the book "Words and Things" by Ernest Gellner, but he provides similar arguments you are suggesting in your post. For Gellner, there is a great desire/importance to theorizing, and so he takes great offense that he needs Wittgenstein's therapy. Take for example,
"If these principles(linguistic philosophy) come to be generally respected, the result would be inhibition of all interesting thought.”
or
“It(linguistic philiosophy) is an attempt to undermine and paralyze one of the most important kinds of thinking, and one of the main agents of progress, namely intellectual advance through consistency and unification, through attainment of coherence, the elimination of exceptions, arbitrariness, and unnecessary idiosyncrasies.”
Additionally, Jerrold Katz, in "Metaphysics of Meaning", presents a theory of meaning that tries to resist the many criticism of Wittgenstein. He believe that Wittgenstein criticism mainly addresses those theories proposed by Frege, Russel, and those presented in Tractatus,
"For Wittgenstein to be successful in his radical critical purpose, he has to show how to eliminate all theories of meaning on which metaphysical questions are meaningful.”
For those interested in comprehensive criticisms on Wittgenstein’s later philosophy, these two books I would recommend.
To theorize or not to theorize, that is the question....
I have not, but it looks like we independently have the same conclusion.
Quoting Richard B
:fire: :100: Yes! This is what I have been saying. He explains the issue well.
Quoting Richard B
Yes that's what I have been saying. It seems he trying to show the flaws in his former belief (Tractatus) and people like Russell and Frege (logicl positivists and logical atomicists specifically). And I think he did make his point, but that's because they straightjacketed themselves in the first place. He is showing the "fly out of the bottle" because they created a self-imposed bottle that doesn't necessarily apply to other philosophers/philosophies. That is to say, yeah if you look for things like a "definite description" as a way to solve metaphysical problems, that is going to cause problems as you try to tie language in some corresponding way to metaphysics. There is a difference between a "description" of a metaphysical thing and a "definite description"- a specific device/idea used by some analytics and logical atomists like Russell..
Quoting schopenhauer1
The style of the Investigations is extremely intentional and necessary for what he is doing--the method he uses is part of the realizations he is able to reach, that the reader is asked to see; it is like Socrates' except Socrates (as with most of analytic philosophy) insisted on a particular type of answer: One that only met a predetermined standard (which Wittgenstein refers to as purity), thus necessitating the idea of "Forms", his inability to come to the conclusion he wants in the Meno, the Theatetus; what @Richard B is calling "consistency and unification, through attainment of coherence, the elimination of exceptions, arbitrariness, and unnecessary idiosyncrasies."--say, making philosophy's findings meet the same standard as science.
Quoting schopenhauer1
This is a common misconception of the Investigations. He is not trying to end philosophy (to avoid addressing the concerns which led to metaphysics); it is just an investigation into the desire that has driven philosophy to certain conclusions, frameworks. The difference between Description and Explanation is also confusing--the description leads to an "explanation" (though the explanation is speculative and simply to see his larger point); it is only that he is not looking for an explanation that satisfies the desire for purity, to generalize, before investigating what is actually the case, what our ordinary criteria are, and why we want to avoid those.
Again, yes, many people misunderstand the reason of pointing out various examples of our lives. The examples are not meant to be foundational (solve skepticism the same way as metaphysics, or facts, or general explanations; the examples are not used, as you say, as a "tool against a particular set of beliefs" emphasis added), they are explicitly meant to lead to the realization that our ordinary criteria for our lives (the "concepts themselves") embody our interests in our lives, what matters to us about a practice, how something counts to be that practice (as I explained above to RussellA, my saying practice here is in place of what he groups and terms "concepts"--to avoid the confusion with the sense of "concept" as in: "idea). These criteria (not the sole criteria that our relation be ensured, "pure") are the "Grammar" meant when Wittgenstein says "Essence is expressed by grammar" #371. Grammar is not "language use" or "use of words" or "rules"; they are the ordinary criteria for judgment that reflect what is essential about an activity for us, rather than a singular "essence" that is constructed from the sole interest for a fixed relation, one that can't go wrong.
And, again, he is not restricting himself to "language" or "language use" (and not the world); his method is to examine what we say in a certain situation (and the associated context) as a means of, as a method to, learn about ourselves and our world, why we overlook these in our desire for purity. As I said above, this misunderstanding leads to the misreading of "Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language." (Emphasis added) Here "by means of language" is in the sense we battle against our bewitchment (desire for purity) through the process of (the "means of" as method or instrument of) looking at what we say in a situation (what he means by "language" here, though Wittgenstein will, confusingly, talk of "cleaning up language", by which he means bringing words back from their philosophical use (#116), bringing us back from our desire for that purity, not being a language police or that this is just about language).
Quoting schopenhauer1
The Investigations is specifically about our "human condition" as it is a realization about the limitations of knowledge, for instance regarding other minds and the "ethical implications" of that (including their suffering, their pain), along with the ethical implications for how we handle moral situations when we don't know what to do (what people "come to blows over" #240), for how to think ethically; the pitfalls of "what should, what ought", etc. You will say he doesn't explicitly address these issues, but I continue to suggest it is only a matter of working to place him in (yet in critique of) the analytical tradition, e.g., matching up a moral situation with the "extension of a concept". He is not spelling all this out to a layperson that has no familiarity with the history of philosophy.
I don't think any of this really answers my critiques about Radagasting and that this is aimed more a particular kind of philosophies that try to make things like "definite descriptions", for example whereby words correspond to reality in some way. I don't think other philosophies need those kind of critiques (of certainty). That is to say, concepts that are not tied to a correspondence theory of words to metaphysics, are simply describing their theory. And it is implicit in their descriptions of reality that they are mere descriptions- a way of relating their ideas about reality. However, unless they are committed to a strict correspondence of words to metaphysics, they have always implicitly been "loose" understandings of metaphysics and epistemology. They are using "forms of life" if you will, to convey their message, and there is no error had with any above and beyond demand for "certainty".
Is Schopenhauer's Will answering questions of "certainty"? Perhaps reality, but that is certainly not certainty.
At first glance, one may think Kant is answering questions of "certainty" when responding to Hume's ideas. But really, it is a theory of how we understand the world by empirical and a apriori means.
Plato is not necessarily talking about "certainty" when he is discussing Forms. He is providing a theory for how there are universals, or things that remain constant amidst change.
I just think that this implies to me there is a "certain" set of philosophies that this idea of "certainty" applies to (analytics- Moore, Russell, Frege, etc.).
Linguistic analysis is an aspect of Wittgenstein's philosophy, but there are other aspects, such as the seeing of aspects and more generally seeing as opposed saying that are of central importance.
As to theorizing, I take his main point to be that our theories can stand in the way of seeing.
When he says at PI 66:
He is not telling us not to think, but rather, in this case, if we think that all games must have something in common we will fail to see that they do not.
Yes, I can agree with things like this when applied to say, Kant's Categorical Imperative. One can spend all day figuring out how reality can be set up to make any "certain" conclusions that fit the criteria of Kant's CI. But then, Kant had some better ideas that conveyed the "sense" of his idea better- that is to say, he had the second formulation "don't treat people as a mere means to an ends". Now, here is a less strict formulation. It is still fuzzy because there can be all kinds of scenarios where we can think of some hard-to-tell ideas.. and is this mental, or is this according to your view, the other person's view, etc.. See, we can all ask these questions of "certainty" for sure. But because it is "fuzzier boundaries" for the second formulation, it can be internalized as a general approach to how we treat people (internalized value or rule rather than a formulation that has to be solved).
That has always been the philosophical approach of dialectic in general. Everything can be questioned, including the question, and it can go endlessly. Nothing can be grounded completely in theory. However, I think this misses the goal of philosophy. It is trying to find some coherence within the Forms of Life. That is to say, it is putting the cart before the horse when saying because we have forms of life that differ from ideas about reality or ethical principles or whatnot, that doesn't mean we can't attempt to create various theories or ideas. Ideas are weighed and judged and applied, and critiqued, and so on. They create their own "forms of life" that lead to other ideas and expansions and applications and the like. One need not stay in the "web of ecology" of word use and then decide to pack your bags and stop philosophizing (what I call now Radagasting).
But this is creating a vision of "reality" because it is required ahead of time to meet a certain requirement, which I am going to stop calling "certainty" because you are conflating it with the sense of being confident, or something like that.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Forms of life is not how, say, my ideas are conveyed, as some kind of way of talking for a certain thing, that we might, then, create or abstract. It is just all the stuff we share in common that is necessary to even have language (but not how it is conducted or ensured).
Stanley Cavell will put it like this:
[Being able to, for example, project words into new contexts] is a matter of our sharing routes of interest and feeling, senses of humour and of significance and of fulfilment, of what is outrageous, of what is similar to what else, what a rebuke, what forgiveness, of when an utterance is an assertion, when an appeal, when an explanation – all the whirl of organism Wittgenstein calls “forms of life”.
@Banno has a good Austin quote that amounts to the same but I can’t remember where that is.
In terms of what a “language game” is, look at the examples of "concepts" that Wittgenstein investigates, the list of which is above in a response to RussellA--these are just things we do that he uses as test cases. He will of course invent contexts and imagine worlds in which what the philosopher says might fit.
What I mean by Certainty (what Wittgenstein is getting at in saying "purity") cascades from an occurrence of things not working out; creating doubt in morality, others, and even physical objects; taking that as a rift (between words and meaning, words and the world, appearances and essences, logic and emotion, etc.); wanting to never have that happen again; requiring there be a way to solve (intellectually) ahead of time what is seen as this "problem"; which creates a prerequisite of a single standard which necessitates a generalized application (universalized, known, predetermined, dependable, etc.). It is basically the age-old problem of skepticism and responses to it, based on knowledge. Schopenhauer, Hume, Kant, Plato, Descartes, on and on, are wrestling with skepticism. Positivism, Moore, Russell, and Frege are just one instance of a response; another is the belief that neuroscience will resolve the "problem".[/quote]
@schopenhauer1
I am merely putting this same observation in a way that goes further to incorporate the larger issue of the fear of skepticism. That it is our desire for purity ("something in common") that blinds us to our ordinary criteria because we will not accept the human condition that we must stand in the place of the limitations of knowledge (it's not just: look! but see why you want an intellectual solution to take your place of being responsible for our interest in our ordinary criteria, or our desire to flee that position).
Could it be the case that Wittgenstein's ideas on God have little philosophical significance, or you personally are not interested in his God topic?
Wittgenstein and religion
This might give an idea of the discussions surrounding Wittgenstein and god.
He does, of course, say things in the ballpark, for example: about another’s soul.
That is to say our posture to someone else is not a matter of knowledge, knowing something (or something lesser, like my opinion), it is a matter of, say, treating them as if they have a soul.
I came across this (attached) very short 13-paragraph synopsis of the ethical import of the Investigations. It includes a discussion of the actual importance of “forms of life”, as expressions of our interests, and even touches on why he is not abandoning philosophy or its issues @schopenhauer1 I’m not sure I would agree with everything, but perhaps these points are expressed better here than by me.
I think for Wittgenstein it all about making connections. I think I have said a few things about that. I will have to look.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Wittgenstein might be more hard lined on than I am, but as I look at it, the problem is not theorizing but when the theory stands in the way of seeing something. The theory is accepted and what does not fit the theory is missed or ignored or downplayed This is similar to the problem of a picture holding us captive.
What textual evidence in the PI is there that the PI is not taking the position of Linguistic Idealism?
Linguistic Idealism is the position that language is the ultimate reality. GEM Anscombe in her paper The Question of Linguistic Idealism considered the question whether Wittgenstein was a linguistic idealist.
For the PI , the meaning of a word is its use in language. Within language, a word can be used to describe the appearance of an object, give an order, obey an order, etc as set out in PI 23. But all these things happen within the world of language, not in a world outside language.
It is true that within the PI is the expression "bring me a slab", but what does this word "slab" refer to. It seems to refer to its use within the world of language, not its use in a world outside of language.
It may seem obvious that language must have a use outside of language, but that does not seem to be the position of the PI. If that were the case, then where in the PI is there any connection between the world in language and the world outside language.
PI 43 For a large class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word "meaning" it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language. And the meaning of a name is sometimes explained by pointing to its bearer.
PI 43 states that the meaning of a word is its use in language. It doesn't continue to say that the use of language is in the world outside language. It doesn't continue to say that language has any use in a world outside language.
Even the phrase "And the meaning of a name is sometimes explained by pointing to its bearer." as expanded upon in PI 40 can be read as the meaning of a word is its use in language.
If the PI is taking the position of Linguistic Idealsim, then there is the problem of circularity. As you said "this word is being used to get its meaning from its use".
As I wrote before: "If meaning as use means use in language, then this is unworkable because of the circularity problem. If meaning as use means use in the world, then this is workable, as the only use of language is to change facts in the world. Language gets its meaning from being able to change facts in the world."
If the PI is not taking the position of Linguistic Idealism, with its inherent problem of circularity, then where in the PI is the textual evidence that this is not the case.
Thanks for the link. :up: :pray:
I have a copy of "The Oxford Handbook of Wittgenstein", and one of the chapter is about "Wittgenstein on Religious Belief" by Stephen Mulhall.
https://global.oup.com/academic/product/the-oxford-handbook-of-wittgenstein-9780199287505?cc=gb&lang=en&#
I have also met a guy who was reading Witt for exclusively analysing the Religious Literatures such as The Bible and the ancient Buddhist scriptures under Wittgenstein's Philosophy of Religion and Logic. He was a lecturer in Religious Dept. of University in Japan. Not sure if he finished his thesis. But I have seen his book published and being sold in Amazon Japan in Japanese language.
True, whether I agree or not with the PI is in a sense secondary, as I am using it to help me develop my own understanding of the relationship between the mind and the world using language.
Quoting Antony Nickles
The two major topics in the PI, self-knowledge and ordinary language, appear to lead into two different directions. Self-knowledge leads into scepticism and Indirect Realism, in that I see a red postbox but this only exists as a representation in my mind, and ordinary language leads into the absence of rationalism and Direct Realism, in that as I see a red postbox there must be a red postbox in the world.
Cavell writes about self-knowledge and ordinary language
[i]p 68 - for the nature of self-knowledge-and therewith the nature of the self is one of the great subjects of the Investigations as a whole.
p 56 - Pole says, or implies, that Wittgenstein regards ordinary language as "sacrosanct"[/i]
Self-knowledge comes from self-reflection, from which sceptical doubt arises naturally about the beliefs inherent within ordinary language
p 60 - Their method is uniformly what Hume describes as "profound and intense reflection" from which, he says, "sceptical doubt arises naturally"
Ordinary language is criticised as lacking rational justification and is founded on what the observer believes to be obvious.
[i]p 58 - "We know that there are material objects," "We directly see them," "We know that other persons are sentient," all of which are believed by the vulgar, have been discovered by philosophers to lack rational justification
p 71 - And that is why there is virtually nothing in the Investigations which we should ordinarily call reasoning; Wittgenstein asserts nothing which could be proved, for what he asserts is either obvious (§ 126)-whether true or false-or else concerned with what conviction, whether by proof or evidence or authority, would consist in[/i]
From my reading of Cavell, there appears to be a fundamental ambiguity in the PI. On the one hand the lack of rationalism in ordinary language, yet on the other hand a desire for self-knowledge which inevitably leads to scepticism about things such as ordinary language.
I think there is abundant evidence in PI that Wittgenstein situates language use within the world among a community of speakers, and so there is definitely "a world outside language". For example, he refers to language use as "part of an activity". Again, at PI 23 (my bolding):
Wittgenstein compares language use to games very deliberately. Games are played in the world (outside our minds), usually with other people, and they often have a set of rules guiding the actions of the players. Once again, they are activities:
Wittgenstein is at pains to get us (philosophers) out of our own heads and very much into the "world outside language" (my bolding):
He also situates philosophical problems or contradictions within the community of speakers, referring to their "status in civic life":
Wittgenstein also emphasises that language is something we learn; something that we are taught by others how to use. He speaks of how we learn the names of sensations from others (PI 244). He speaks of a teacher and a pupil and makes references to, e.g., learning language, learning to play chess, learning to calculate, learning rules, learning how to go on, etc.
Not to mention that the majority of the work is focused on trying to break the misconception that meaning is something subjective or mentally determined, and trying to get us to see that the grammar of our language is based in a community of speakers and our publicly observable behaviours (in the world). That's the point of the private language argument.
Form of life is the wider activity surrounding language use; the passing of slabs on command, the smile that accompanies a greeting, the gathering of friends and family to witness a couple say "I do", the facial expression suitable for a question or a sympathetic word. In short, our human life on Earth in which language is embedded.
According to Wittgenstein's PI, what is the purpose of language? Wittgenstein may intend it to have other purposes than as described in the PI, but if we are to take the PI at face value, there seems to be no more purpose for language than to be coherent within itself.
PI 43 For a large class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word "meaning" it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language. And the meaning of a name is sometimes explained by pointing to its bearer.
PI 43 states that the meaning of a word is its use in language. It doesn't continue to say that the use of language is in the world outside language.
Even the phrase "And the meaning of a name is sometimes explained by pointing to its bearer." as expanded upon in PI 40 can be read as the meaning of a word is its use in language.
It seems easy to read the PI as Linguistic Idealism, whereby language is the ultimate reality, and if this is the case, then language cannot be said to have any pragmatic use outside of language.
It is true that within the PI is the expression "bring me a slab", but what does this word "slab" refer to. It seems to refer to its use within the world of language, not its use in a world outside of language.
Language then becomes an incredibly intricate machine, where one lever hits another cog, which open s a valve which moves a spindle. All meticulously controlled to create an intricate piece of work, such as a Rowland Emett construction. Beautiful in its integrity but having no practical use in a word outside of itself. Each Emett machine is its own language game, each wonderfully coherent but none corresponding to a world outside of themselves.
This may not be the case with the PI, but if so, out of interest, where in the PI is the textual evidence that this is not the case.
PI 293 in giving the analogy of the beetle describes how my private sensation of pain drops out of consideration in the language game. But this is not what I want. I want my pain to have a real world effect outside of language, but this is not something the PI seems to go into.
This explains a lot.
Quoting RussellA
Skepticism is the fear that there is an ever-present breakdown in activities such as just: seeing a mailbox, which leads to the fantasy of an essence or “real” mailbox, and thus the creation of the“representation” or something else that is “mine”, to explain our inability to deal with differences and exceptions, etc. of “a mailbox”. In other words, your “own understanding” is philosophy’s classic freakout to uncertainty and doubt.
Quoting RussellA
Skepticism doesn’t come up because of something wrong with ordinary language (and we don’t “believe” in it, or have certain “beliefs” because of it). Our uncertainty just comes up when things just naturally fail, or turn out not as we expected, as, from the first part of the meditations:
Quoting Descartes 1sr Meditation (My emphasis)
Descartes was wrong a couple times and now he is compelled to “build” something certain, “foundational” so he doesn’t have to worry about being wrong.
Quoting RussellA
The condemnation of our ordinary criteria is the skeptic’s reaction to their doubt; they fly away from our everyday means of judgment. And Wittgenstein’s claims are not obvious, they are uncontroversial (not as "common sense" but that which we can acknowledge or find out by ourselves).
Quoting RussellA
Wittgenstein is using a method other than what we would "usually call reasoning"; that does not mean it "lacks rationality"; plus that is not a characterization of "ordinary language", so not ambiguous or conflicting with skepticism of our ordinary criteria (not language), which does not come from the desire for self-knowledge, but, if examined, leads to self-knowledge.
Maybe one more time through that article.
Ironically, you are trying to convey some sort of "certainty" about WIttgenstein's philosophy to me :snicker:.
I just "love" how the usual discourse in Witt goes though.. Cause the next move for you to say is that, "Well no, I am just doing my best to convey to you what cannot be conveyed because you just have to "get it" from this therapeutic demonstrative approach.". So you can spare me that next line.. I still claim you are trying to instill some "certainty" about Wittgenstein :razz:.
Also, I get what Forms of Life are.. But I see the philosophical tradition as it's own Form of Life that it has generated through the years and thus, in a way, its context is within that tradition. Even you said that Witt relies on this understanding of Western history to "get" it.
I just don't agree with the premise that philosophers are working to solve skepticism necessarily. I know I am not when I am "doing" or "reading" philosophy. There can be all sorts of reasons to philosophize. If we define philosophy as generally "thinking about the bigger picture", we all at some level, at some times in our lives, "philosophize". We might ask, "What's the meaning of it all?". And you might say, "Aha! That is skepticism!". Fine, then skepticism is anything with an open-ended answer.. But that is a lame way of using skepticism, because it is so broad. The skepticism you seem to be intending for Witt is something akin to skepticism in knowledge if something is true. But, even that is not necessarily an implicit drive for philosophical inquiry. I don't study Schopenhauer's Will because it answers questions of claims of knowledge, for example. I don't think Will will help me understand how a toilet works, or how it is that humans evolved brains that have the ability for language, for example. But if I was to inquire about that, I might research evolutionary biology or anthropology, and the like. I might look at and evaluate various theories for how and why language evolved. And yeah, none of those answers are going to necessarily be "the" right answer, just more convincing based on arguments and evidence presented. But it takes a personality-type that "needs" certainty for this to be an issue, and I don't think all philosophical drives or philosophers (whether academic or not) are completely taken by the idea that they will find "one universal answer". Rather, the search for Truth itself is something that seems motivating in some way.. A search for answers to abstract questions. And thus, there may not be a final answer to any of them, but there are ones that accord with what makes sense. And those theories become "THE theory" because you have either agreed with its sensibility for answering the question, or you yourself have constructed the theory to what you view as sensibly answering the question.
So this is all to say, none of this really strikes some sort of profound truth to a personality that never had the demand for certainty in the first place.
Sure, I'd agree with that, but I am not sure the whole PI was what convinced me of this. There might be some personality types this is useful for- one's he worked close with perhaps?
I think the idea for example of Will is an intriguing one.. But then I see flaws in how it is contradictory or incomplete, and unprovable, etc. So, that doesn't mean there isn't some sort of interesting truths or gleanings that one can gather from the idea or use as a jumping off point, etc. I mean, isn't that practically what all of modern philosophy is? You take a previous philosopher, you discuss it, then you critique it, and often you offer what you think might be a better solution, and so on.
Yeah, I like your analogy there. So I think you are correct. He is caught in the "web of ecology" and is trying to demonstrate various ways that language is vague or breaks down. He really wants you to see that.
As far as how this can be "used" outside of seeing that things are only family resemblances and forms of life, I don't know what else you can make of it other than, a collection of language breakdowns.
It seems you want to provide a framework and structure to something he just didn't do himself and perhaps is trying to show is the wrong approach anyways because language to him, will just elude your trying to define it. Perhaps your idea of Linguistic Idealism doesn't work in various cases.. You can imagine Witt presenting you with a host of language games that breakdown when applied to his theory where it doesn't apply, etc. That is I guess part of his point. So yeah, you can try to pin his theory down in a grand theory of epistemology and ontology, but he would probably say it's a lost cause or something like that.
As Cavell wrote in The Later Wittgenstein, for Wittgenstein, knowledge starts with self-knowledge, not just simply adopting a method and then blindly accepting its results. Self-knowledge is one of the great subjects of the Investigations.
If the little I have said makes plausible the idea that the question "How do we know what we say (intended to say, wish to say)?" is one aspect of the general question "What is the nature of self-knowledge?" then we will realize that Wittgenstein ·has not first "accepted" or "adopted" a method and then accepted its results, for the nature of self-knowledge-and therewith the nature of the self is one of the great subjects of the Investigations as a whole.
Quoting Antony Nickles
The Indirect Realist is surely sceptical of the ordinary language of the Direct Realist who, when they say "I see a slab", believes they are directly seeing a slab in the world as it really is.
When discussing a particular philosopher or particular work of that philosopher, to use it as a jumping off point, however valuable that might be, is a jumping away from what that philosopher says and means and intends for us to examine.
These are two different practices that are too often treated as if they are the same.
No you can understand what they intend to examine, see how they examine it, critique it, and offer your own alternative. One can get a picture of what the author is saying and then evaluate it. I see "philosophy" as an iterative, participatory thing, unless one is purely just trying to interpret or analyze a work without doing anything else with it, even if perhaps at a later point. The author themselves shouldn't be a substitution for one's own thoughts. Even if you agree 100% with the author, it's the evaluation and integration part that is yours.
The interpretive challenge is made evident by the fact that interpretations vary widely. He can not possibly mean all these different things attributed to him. One's jumping off point may be at odds with what the author says and means. If that is not a concern then I question the extent to which you are discussing Wittgenstein.
Quoting schopenhauer1
If one has little concern for what the author means then to what extent is this a participatory thing? If I say "ABC" and you respond as if I said "XYZ" in what way is talking passed each other iterative or participatory?
Quoting schopenhauer1
In my opinion, one of the greatest values of reading certain philosophers is that through our attempt to understand them they teach us to think.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I agree with the second part, but see it as part of interpretive practice. As to the first part, all too often what one agrees or disagrees with their own misunderstanding of the author.
But, it seems since Wittgenstein's "method" is not direct, this will always be more of a problem, and especially so for his particular brand of philosophy. It's a philosophy that touts its inability to be directed, but then pretentiously condescends to those whom the Wittgensteinians think have not "really" understood.. Pick a lane.. Either its non-interpretive and up for various interpretations, or the author truly wanted you to see something, in which case, I am going to say shame on him for not explicating his ideas and thus making it a hipster-parlor-game for the "in the knows" who "really" understand Witt.
Quoting Fooloso4
Did I say that one was to not understand the author? When did I say that?
Quoting Fooloso4
Rubbish. While I agree to a certain extent that you can learn from various philosophers and their writings, that to me is a dead-end if you just read a philosopher and you don't do anything with it for yourself. Also, these people aren't prophets or gods. It's [s]narcissistic[/s] [s]dogmatic[/s] self-limiting to think you can't "think" past the "published works" of the "great philosophers".
Quoting Fooloso4
Dude, I never said that one shouldn't try to understand the author. This is a strawman.
I think he follows the ancient tradition of esoteric writing:
From a draft for the preface to Philosophical Remarks:
— Culture and Value
It is not that he did not want to be understood but that he had not and would not be understood by more than a few people:
From the preface to PI:
Quoting schopenhauer1
Again, given the divergence of interpretations the problem of interpretation remains. My concern it that when the reader (note that this is a general comment about readers of difficult texts) uses the text
Quoting schopenhauer1
or when you
Quoting schopenhauer1
it is as if the interpretative work has been completed.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Your practice and experience with interpretation seems to be quite removed from mine. Interpretation is not a matter of just reading. Rather than being a dead-end it is an opening up and shedding light. An interpretive reading is not passive. It is doing something with it for yourself, but not by yourself. It is an engagement with the thinking of the author and with other readers and to the extent that philosophy is a dialogue across the ages, with other philosophers.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Perhaps you are the exception, but very few will stand the test of time. This does not mean that the philosophers are prophets or gods, but that their work is superior to ours. Exempt yourself if you like.
That is not irony, it’s obtuseness. What you are haphazardly referring to is certainty in its sense as particularity, and, despite your condescension, I am, of course, arguing that Wittgenstein is being rigorous and specific. Also, generalizing my response in with others is starting to be more just rude than simply unfair and intellectually lazy.
Quoting schopenhauer1
You mean the analytical tradition’s disappointment with knowledge and its attempts to resolve that? You’d need to answer for a lot of evidence.
Quoting schopenhauer1
But is that philosophy? …isn’t that science? and… plumbing?
Quoting schopenhauer1
“Accord with what makes sense”? Is that rationality? So the uncertainty of another person has a rational answer? If we have a moral disagreement we just agree (or judge?) what or who makes the most sense?
Quoting schopenhauer1
Feeling the grip of skepticism is not an easy experience to engender either. But you just make up what you think is right about philosophy and I’ll do the same and we’ll just hope we agree.
Cavell in The Later Wittgenstein writes that self-knowledge and ordinary language are two major themes in the Investigations.
[i]p 68 - for the nature of self-knowledge-and therewith the nature of the self is one of the great subjects of the Investigations as a whole.
PI 132 - We want to establish an order in our knowledge of the use of language: an order with a particular end in view; one out of many possible orders; not the order.[/i]
Self-knowledge naturally leads to scepticism, and the rational justifications of philosophy. But Wittgenstein is not a fan of philosophy.
[i]p 60 - Their method is uniformly what Hume describes as "profound and intense reflection" from which, he says, "sceptical doubt arises naturally"
PI 116 - What we do is to bring words back from their metaphysical to their everyday use[/i]
However, Wittgenstein does find personal change important, which can only be a result of self-knowledge.
p 72 - Both thought of their negative soundings as revolutionary extensions of our knowledge, and both were obsessed by the idea, or fact, that they would be misunderstood, partly, doubtless, because they knew the taste of self-knowledge, that it is bitter.
I am unclear whether Cavell is making the point that Wittgenstein does or doesn't support self-knowledge. On the one hand it leads to philosophy, which he doesn't approve of, and on the other hand it leads to personal change, which he does approve of.
I agree that the Investigations refers to a world of board games, athletic games, ordinary life, civic life, teachers, pupils, communities and other forms of life.
In the Investigations, within the sentence "bring me a slab", I agree that the word "slab" is naming an object in the world. The question is, does this world exist only in language or both inside and outside of language.
PI 43 For a large class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word "meaning" it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language. And the meaning of a name is sometimes explained by pointing to its bearer.
The meaning of the word "slab" derives from its context in the language game being used by the speaker.
When I say "bring me the slab", my concept of "slab" is part of from my language game. When you say "bring me the slab", your concept of "slab" is part of your language game.
But because we have had different forms of life, perhaps you are an engineer in South Africa and perhaps I am a chemist in Ghana , as our language games must inevitably be different, our concepts of "slab" must also inevitably be different.
It cannot be the case that the word "slab" names an object in a world outside language, because, if that were the case, this object in the world outside of language would have to be existing in two different forms at the same time. One form determined by my use of the word "slab" and a different form determined by your use of the word "slab".
I am sure we agree that the object in the world outside language can only have one form. But if that were the case, and my word "slab" names this object, and your word "slab" names the same object, then our concepts and language games must be the same
In fact, everyone who used "slab" in their language must be using the same language game, with the result that within a community there can only be one language game. This would mean that everyone using the word "slab" had the same exact concept of "slab", which is clearly not the case
If Wittgenstein is interpreted as saying that the world of board games, etc did exist not only in the world in language but also in the world outside language, then one consequence would be that everyone's concept of "slab" would be exactly the same, which is clearly not the case.
Typically, we don't each play our own individual language-games. It isn't that I have my own concept of slab and you have yours. You either learn to use the word/concept "slab" like others do or else you haven't learned the concept. We both speak English, right? You wouldn't get very far in the builder's language-game if you repeatedly fetched a hammer in response to the command "Slab!".
You are talking about us each having our own private language. Wittgenstein took issue with that idea.
Yes, it may be that Wittgenstein was opposed to theories as any theory can later be shown to be either wrong or incorrect. But if that advice was followed, humans would still be living in caves.
Notwithstanding, PI 43 does set out the distinct theory that the meaning of a word is its use in language. Even if this theory is shown to be either wrong or incomplete, it is still invaluable in being able to be used as a foundation to develop something better. Because that is how theories work, a gradual improvement with time.
The next step in improving the theory that the meaning of a word is its use in language is to begin to incorporate the principles of Linguistic Idealism, and to clarify the consequences to language of the distinction between Indirect and Direct Realism.
How can you know my concept of Slab? How do you know that our concepts of a "slab" are the same? My Form of Life has been unique to me, the jobs I have had, the countries I have visited. This is the point of Wittgenstein's family resemblances, in that there is no one standard example of a "slab" sitting in a Government Building ready for inspection.
We can agree to the dictionary definition of a slab as i) a large, thick, flat piece of stone or concrete, typically square or rectangular in shape ii) a large, thick slice or piece of cake, bread, chocolate, etc, iii) an outer piece of timber sawn from a log, but many don't see the value in definitions. Definitions can end up circular and change with time.
Quoting Luke
I feel the same in the philosopher's language game.
Quoting Luke
If concepts didn't exist in the mind, but only in a community, such a community would be a community of zombies, none having a private concept or private sensation.
Cavell in The Later Wittgenstein makes the point that Wittgenstein never denied that we have private thoughts and feelings
Other philosophers, I believe, are under the impression that Wittgenstein denies that we can know what we think and feel, and even that we can know ourselves. This extraordinary idea comes, no doubt, from such remarks of Wittgenstein's as: "I can know what 70 * MUST WE MEAN WHAT WE SAY? someone else is thinking, not what I am thinking" (II, p. 222); "It cannot be said of me at all (except perhaps as a joke) that I know I am in pain" (§5!46). But the "can" and "cannot" in these remarks are grammatical; they mean "it makes no sense to say these things" (in the way we think it does); it would, therefore, equally make no sense to say of me that I do not know what I am thinking, or that I do not know I am in pain. The implication is not that I cannot know myself, but that knowing oneself-though radically different from the way we know others--is not a matter of cognizing (classically, "intuiting") mental acts and particular sensations.
Having private thoughts and feelings is not the same as having what is called "a private language".
As the analogy of the beetle in PI 293 illustrates, private sensations do drop out of consideration within the language game, not that private sensations drop out of consideration.
I guess defining Linguistic Idealism as saying that language is what shapes our understanding more than pre-linguistic or meta-linguistic faculties (like cognitive frameworks that might be posited in a Kantian philosophy let's say), then I would imagine that is the case. However, I would argue there are things that need to be in place for language to even be a thing for Witt- social arrangements of humans, the ability to have language in the first place, perhaps even intentionality, a history of human evolution leading to the ability to use language as humans do. So in this sense, I would say that leads to a sort of "realism" that gets to a world that has preconditions for his Language Idealism to be a thing. I am not sure what that really means for a theory of idealism, realism, or something else.
This makes me understand a lot of what you have been saying. You may have been butting heads with people (and with understanding the Investigations) because you are saying the word “private” for two things. One is Wittgenstein’s specific philosophical sense of “private” as having some “thing” in your mind for all of language, every “thing” you say. What is important for you, I think, is better expressed as something personal (which is not all the time either, as I will discuss below). So your ownership of your inner life is: a secret; not that there is some thing always there that is unknown to others, “unknowable”, which is what Wittgenstein means by “private”). So a “secret” is just kept from others, because it is unexpressed, you have to let it out, it is hidden (not “private” in Witt’s sense)—this is the way our inner life works, in the sense of: is judged as meaningful (not, as it is misunderstood, knowing the science of our brain), what matters to us about being a self. If you look at the Index of the PI under expression it is a core idea to understand in this context.
So you have been correct to insist that we do have individual feelings, and even experiences that are inexpressible to others entirely (the awe of a sunset)—though ordinary language is perfectly capable of making us intelligible (for us to agree we are like others), and so it is our choice not to, and so ethically our duty or responsibility to be understood (not start as different, individual). The fact of our inner life is what Wittgenstein means when he asks us to look at why we think he wants to deny that (#308) (in his investigating and deconstructing why we want something pure, certain in us, continual, always known).
Quoting RussellA
So if we reframe not having a “private language” (not having a thing inside us, like a “concept” in our “mind”) and look at it as the fear of not having an inner life, then: yes, we might be a “zombie”, a puppet, speaking only others opinions, etc. Emerson will call this “conformity”. Wittgenstein speaks of us as being blind (to others, but also ourselves). The article I offered points out well that philosophy in this sense measures not what we ought to do, but how much we find, know, and are ourselves in contrast to “community”.
However, community does allow the easy ordinary flow of our lives together; most of the time your “experience” is just like mine (#253); we both just “went shopping” or “have a headache”—to preserve our individuality is a different thing than saying my feelings, experience, “consciousness” are always different than yours. But sometimes we need to take a stand, differentiate our experience (our lives). But this is the exception. Only sometimes, Wittgenstein says, we are lost, do not know how to continue, say, a concept into a new context, or from the failure or disappointment with our ordinary criteria (what matters to us, how things usually go). This is when he is saying classical philosophy abandons our responsibility to ourselves by abstracting to ensure myself, my relation to the world, to others.
I think and have hope this will allow you to make great strides in being able to talk about what concerns you here while understanding what Wittgenstein is getting at.
But do all "philosophies" really do this, or just some? There are some that are all about the immediate, personal, social, etc.
Quoting schopenhauer1
What Wittgenstein is looking at is one of classical philosophy’s responses to skepticism: trying to solve skepticism (deny the fact that Wittgenstein’s investigation finds about our human condition; the truth it records Cavell will say); some also try to accept its conclusion but work around it (most of modern philosophy); or give up and abandon philosophy (which some people say Wittgenstein is doing). I would say the battle with skepticism, “moral relativism”, etc., has been the crux of “analytical” philosophy. I can’t think of examples that don’t other than what people call “continental” philosophy, which I would categorize as: accepting the world and just investigating how it is (Foucault, Arendt, Rousseau, Machiavelli, Confucius, etc.)—more of just a social commentary.
This seems a bit dismissive... But I will grant you analytical philosophy. But look at someone like Schopenhauer.. His philosophy though somewhat technical and architectonic, is also very much about the everyday human condition, and one's own individuation in reality. I think his philosophy is one whereby Witt's ideas on philosophy don't quite fit.
I’ll admit I have not read Schopenhauer (which is long overdue given my interest in both Witt and Nietzsche), but I am claiming that the Investigations is specifically about our “human condition” (in relation to knowledge) and “one’s own individuation” (thus the importance of how a certain picture obscures how individuation actually works—see my response to RussellA just above.) I am not trying to dismiss anything; I am just trying to show how strong the fear of it is, thus how pervasive the issue, and how multi-faceted the responses are. I am not trying to say this is the only issue in all of philosophy of course. Just that people don’t usually realize that what they are theorizing about and for, falls under this banner, and thus is based on the same fears and desires that Wittgenstein uncovers, along with the attempt to have knowledge or intellectualization solve our separation, ignore the limitations of knowledge.
Thank you for that information. It reinforces my suspicion that:
Quoting Fooloso4
I have often quoted the following:
(CV, 24)
In this compact statement he touches on three things that are central to my work in philosophy:
Working on oneself
Interpretation
One's way of seeing things
I don’t see that at odds.
What is 'that' and what is it not at odds with?
Perhaps I misunderstood what your point was in saying the quote was a good one for me.
This may or may not apply, but if not in this case then in others. I think there may be some here who think that interpretation is just gathering and giving information, which is assumed to occur without thought or insight.
Baking a cake is more than getting the ingredients together.
I mean this is essentially what I’m saying I just add that one can synthesize one’s own philosophy, using one’s own ideas or ideas from others too. All of this equals insight. It’s not just that one gets the “right” interpretation but how you integrate and or use it and evaluate it to then synthesize it and weigh and evaluate underlying ideas about the world using your own reasoning and against other ideas etc.
Purely interpreting the author means nothing to me other than you understood the authors idea (although this opens up bigger ideas of if this can be the case or even if this should be the case…Depending on genre).
This mirrors Wittgenstein’s insights about the limits of knowledge, and our desire to have knowledge be everything, that knowledge might equal virtue, will be an answer in place of us, of our responsibility to see for ourselves, to expand our vision; that the value of philosophy is an insight beyond what can be told. This is why I’ve been saying we have a desire to have knowledge (purity) replace our other relations to the world (and others) beyond it, apart from it.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I can see this as an analytic statement; perhaps as an insight into our misplaced myopathy out of fear of our lack of control of the world. Even if I haven’t read this right just yet, I still think he is trying to get at the reasons and desires we have that hold us back, just as Wittgenstein is with the interlocutor (that Schopenhauer’s “students” and “every man” share the same fear of skepticism). So I would say they have a similar interest, project. That Wittgenstein uses a different method I would say is because of the specific and entrenched tick he has to dig deep to—that because of his path he is closer to it, has to walk us through it as he undergoes his own insight; though now I think I better understand your preference for Schopenhauer’s style.
In the context of this discussion about PI and language-games, I presume that your concept of "slab" is the same as mine, referring to one of the builder's building materials. Did you have something else in mind?
Quoting RussellA
Form of Life is not relative or unique to individuals.
The SEP article on Wittgenstein gives the following account of Form of Life:
Form of Life may allow for some relativism between different cultures or time periods, depending on your reading, but it does not allow for relativism between individuals. An individual does not have their own unique Form of Life, just as (and for the same reasons that) an individual does not have their own unique language.
Quoting RussellA
Is the first definition, i), your concept of slab (i.e. the concept you claimed ownership of when you asked: "How can you know my concept of Slab?"? If so, then it is the same concept as mine (in this context). This shouldn't come as a surprise.
Quoting RussellA
I don't see what any of this has to do with language, or with your earlier suggestion that we each play our own individual language-games rather than partaking in communal ones, namely:
Quoting RussellA
I appreciate your pointing out that as I don't understand the Investigations, I should be learning from people wiser than me.
The word "private" has many uses, as shown in the Merriam Webster Dictionary. As an adjective:
1a: intended for or restricted to the use of a particular person, group, or class
1b: belonging to or concerning an individual person, company, or interest
1c (1): carried on by the individual independently of the usual institutions, also, being educated by independent study or a tutor or in a private school
1c (2): restricted to the individual or arising independently of others
1d: not general in effect
1e (1): accommodating only one patient
1e (2): staying or recovering in a room accommodating only one patient
2 a (1) not related to one's official position
2a (2) not holding public office or employment
2b: being a private
3a: not known or intended to be known publicly
3b: preferring to keep personal affairs to oneself: valuing privacy highly
3c: withdrawn from company or observation
3d: unsuitable for public display or use
4: not having share that can be freely traded on the open market
Quoting Antony Nickles
I have a friend who is colour blind. How would you describe to them in words your personal experience of the colour violet?
If it is the case that neither of us can describe in words our personal experience of the colour violet, then how do we know that my personal experience is just like your personal experience?
Quoting Antony Nickles
From Wikipedia Philosophical Zombie: "A philosophical zombie is a being in a thought experiment in philosophy of mind that is physically identical to a normal person but does not have conscious experience." A philosophical zombie is not someone who doesn't have their own opinions.
Quoting Luke
As definition i) is your definition of a slab but not mine, then we don't agree as to the definition of a "slab". For me a "slab" can be "a large or small, thick or thin, flat or uneven piece of stone or concrete, typically square or rectangular in shape".
I find it hard to believe that two people can have the same concept of any word. For example, in the form that my life has taken, I have designed reinforced concrete slabs, supervised their construction, overseen their movement and have built them with my own hands. Even if you have lived a similar form of life to me, which is probably unlikely, I doubt your concept of slab would be the same as mine.
Quoting Luke
Even assuming that in the world there is one Form of Life that encompasses everything within it, whether nature, animals or humans, then the Form of Life will be external to each individual living within it.
It may be true that each individual is living within the same Form of Life, but no two individuals can ever have the same experience of it. Each individuals experience of the Form of Life will be different and unique to them.
For many years, I have had the concept of a "peffel" as well as its name, part my pen and part the Eiffel Tower. This word I have found useful when thinking about the ontology of relations, and has been part of my private language, and so far, unique to me.
That's just quibbling over the definition. It's not like you meant something entirely different, like a hammer or like definition ii). This is where family resemblance and fuzzy boundaries might enter into it. We could ask how small or thin or uneven it could be before we would no longer consider it a slab. But even then we are still both talking about the same meaning of "slab"; the same "slab" concept.
Quoting RussellA
What about the words in your sentence quoted above? How could anyone else possibly understand what that sentence meant if we didn't have the same concept of those words? Do you think your ordinary use and understanding of the word "two" or "people" or "word" is different to that of any other fluent English speaker?
Quoting RussellA
As I mentioned in my previous post, you are using "form of life" incorrectly.
Quoting RussellA
Individuals (humans) don't experience Form of Life differently; it's who we are. It's the shared human
behaviours and judgements that are common to all humans; our human form of life.
Quoting RussellA
As @Antony Nickles mentioned recently, what Wittgenstein means by "private" in relation to a private language is that the words of this language can, in principle, be understood by one person only and that nobody else can understand the language. Since you were able to explain the meaning of the "peffel" concept, then I don't believe this qualifies as a private language.
Language is just a representation of the mind and thought of an individual, therefore it will never replace the content of thought or mind.
One will never know what slab you are talking about, when you say to your assistant "Bring me a slab." over the phone or in a text message out of blue.
However, if you and your assistant are talking facing the piles of slabs in the site, and when you point to a slab from distance "Bring me that slab.", he will know exactly what slab you are referring to.
So language can be used to talk about objects at a conceptual level without having to have the physical objects it is referring to, and it can also be used to point to real objects existing in the world.
You don't need to have exactly the same concept of slab, when you are talking about slab. Because there is no such thing as exactly the same concept of object. At this level the meaning of slab is also words and thoughts about a slab, not the real physical slab.
Yes, if me and my assistant are talking facing a pile of things on the site, when I point to one of them and say "Bring me that", he will know exactly what I am referring to.
When pointing to something, I don't even need to name it.
The next day, over the phone, when I tell my assistant "bring me the same thing that you brought me yesterday" he will know exactly what I am referring to.
Once something has been pointed out, it can be referred to without needing to name it again.
Pointing at something in the world is a key aspect in our ability to use language.
What if today assistant doesn't remember which slab he brought to you yesterday, because he delivered so many different type of slabs - square one in large size, hexagonal shape in medium size, small size, and different finish (buff, sand, grey, brick red ...etc )??
I agree that in today's terms, a pre-language Neanderthal would surely be a Realist, with an instinctive belief in the reality of the world with all its present and real dangers.
But the Neanderthal would quickly realise the disconnect between their perception of the world and the reality of the world. In looking for a straight stick, the Neanderthal would initially ignore the stick in the water that appeared half-bent, but would later discover that because a stick is perceived as bent does not mean it is bent in reality. They would also quickly realise that the world didn't disappear when they closed their eyes. They would conclude that things in the world are not perceived immediately or directly. IE, they would not be Direct Realists.
From a review of Dilman Ilham's book Wittgenstein's Copernican Revolution: The Question of Linguistic Idealism one reads the following about Linguistic Idealism
Linguistic Idealism is a philosophical concept that explores the relationship between language and reality. It posits that our language is not founded on an empirical reality with which we are in contact through sense perception. Instead, it suggests that our language determines the kind of contact we have with such a reality and our conception of it. Linguistic Idealism is not a form of realism or idealism, but rather an attempt to undermine certain presuppositions of the realist/idealist debate.
In observing the world, we perceive different colours when looking at different wavelengths of light. For some inexplicable reason, even though we perceive the colours from the wavelengths 620 to 750nm as different, we find some similarity between them, and arrive at the concept that can be named "red". This is in a sense Idealism, as our concept only exists in the mind. But in another sense is Realism, as our concept depends on real examples of wavelengths existing in the world. As with Linguistic Idealism, the word "red" is a function of both concepts that only exist in the mind and examples that only exist in the world.
Similarly the Neanderthal must be both a Realist, with an instinctive belief in the reality of the world with all its present and real dangers, and an Idealist, in realising the disconnect between their perception of the world and the reality of the world.
I would sack him for incompetence.
Got it. Yeah, I was looking at it this way:
Language Idealism presumably means that language shapes reality for humans. That humans in a way, "can't escape it" as the mediator for how they view the world. But evolution, and pre-linguistic considerations point to perhaps a "way out" of that. That is to say, there are fundamental things underlying language that means that language might not be the foundational way humans interact with the world. Or perhaps, looked at only by way of what we do now with language it is, but on further investigation, is not the case.
Perhaps, for example, with linguistic anthropology, or investigations into cognitive neuroscience, we see how human intentionality, human sociability, and the like, tool use, shared intersubjectivity (or alternatively, if Chomsky is somehow correct, "self-talk") and the like are more foundational ways humans interact with the world. These are shaped by forces that our species demanded in evolutionary terms. In the sense that it is very much a part of the "great outdoors" of the world outside our minds, it is "real" and not just all "in our linguistic use" that is the case for how we interact with the world.
Even more interesting, perhaps "use" has foundations in a sub-layer of "use". Imagine that for example, our ancestors "used" tools or gestured to the mouth for "food". Thus, we have a direct correlation of object with its "use". This is more than just inter-contextual language as we know it now. This is directly correlated with "the world".
Quoting Embodied embedded cognition Wiki
Similar and same mean different things. "The Eiffel Tower is similar to the Blackpool Tower" is true. "The Eiffel Tower is the same as the Blackpool Tower" is false.
Quoting Luke
How can a thirteen year old girl living in Dzivarasekwa, Harare experience the same Form of Life as a sixty year old lawyer living in Bel Air, Los Angeles?
I wrote: Even assuming that in the world there is one Form of Life that encompasses everything within it, whether nature, animals or humans, then the Form of Life will be external to each individual living within it. It may be true that each individual is living within the same Form of Life, but no two individuals can ever have the same experience of it. Each individuals experience of the Form of Life will be different and unique to them.
What is the correct use of Form of Life ?
Quoting Luke
According to Wikipedia Private Language
In order to count as a private language in Wittgenstein's sense, it must be in principle incapable of translation into an ordinary language – if for example it were to describe those inner experiences supposed to be inaccessible to others. The private language being considered is not simply a language in fact understood by one person, but a language that in principle can only be understood by one person.
I can define the word "peffel" as "part my pen and part the Eiffel Tower", and I can define "pen" and "Eiffel Tower", but I cannot put into words what the words "pen" and "Eiffel Tower" mean to me, as my concepts of "pen" and "Eiffel Tower" have grown and developed over a lifetime of unique multiple experiences.
Even if I defined "The Eiffel Tower" as "a 300-metre tower built almost entirely of open-lattice wrought iron in Paris", I would then have to define "tower" as "a tall, narrow building". I would then have to define "building" as "a structure with a roof and walls", where a "structure" is "a building constructed from several parts". Definitions are problematic in deciding meaning.
Even in Wittgenstein's terms, as my personal concept of "peffel" is inaccessible to others, it is part of my private language.
Quoting RussellA
I'm not sure what you are getting at here, but, just because a word has many different definitions does not make it impossible for it to be one of its specific senses when said at a particular time within a particular context--just because there are many uses (amongst all its ordinary possibilities) does not allow that it can mean any of them all the time. What I meant to clarify was that there is Wittgenstein's basically technical sense of "private" and then there is the ordinary sense of private as in personal, secret (among all the other senses it can have), most closely definition 3b: "preferring to keep personal affairs to oneself" though a definition does not draw out the workings of a use (sense). So personal and private (as Wittgenstein terms it) are two different things, and you are using the word "private" in the place of both, which is confusing others (particularly @Luke), and I think getting in the way of your understanding Wittgenstein.
Quoting RussellA
But "your personal experience of colour" is not the way identifying color works, by which I mean the criteria we use to judge the identity of colors. I would review his discussion of color starting at #275: "...without philosophical intentions—the idea never crosses your mind that this impression of colour belongs only to you." As with pain (#253), we don't get into distinctions of "my" impression of color unless we are taking into account other interests than its identity (discussed below)--we have concrete ways of identifying color. For example: "Grab the purple ball" (from a ball pit with many other colors). If there is no other purple-ish ball, we do not continue to distinguish that it is actually violet (if you said, "you mean the violet one" we would say your are being obtuse, or a know-it-all). But if we are examining someone's house in order to replicate its color, and I say "that's a nice purple" it might be important for you to point out that it is actually violet, say, given that we need to be able to tell the paint shop. And here (in this case, instance) we can make distinctions even without our input, regardless of our judgment at all, as the creation of color can be broken down empirically, e.g., taking a sample and having it matched. The point being, if two objects are "red" (based on the context), the color is the same, and not because our personal experiences match up (or that we "agree").
It is this context of the importance of (our interest in) distinguishing and the necessity based on the situation that drives the identification of color, not my "personal experience", however, that is not to say that we do not have personal experiences with color. Green can remind me of my childhood home. A Rothko painting is meant to be evocative in many ways. Also, there are rational ways to discuss the use of color for effect, the aesthetics of it. (I'm sure there are other cases where our experience with color matters, but they escape me. Thus the admonition to read Witt's discussion.) Even here, where my personal reaction matters, it is not to say we can't talk about it; that we can't share that experience, though, as I said, this does not preclude the instance of the ineffability to express (even metaphorically, poetically, etc) my experience of, say, a magnificent sunset--but this is the exception, not always the case. This is a step above, but the desire for there to always be something of mine is the desire to hold onto a fact of myself, something ever-present, unique, "individuating" as @schopenhauer1 put it.
Quoting RussellA
"Color blind" as used in philosophy is a hypothetical case based on the same picture that in every case each one of us always has a unique experience of color (it is usually called an "impression" of color). The philosophical imagined case is that when I see red, you see blue. However, imagine the ordinary case that I am no good at color, and my wife says I'm "color blind". That is just because I call blue, green (what she "calls" green--but I've learned she's... right (that was hard to say). That is because she has authority (as color matching could be), so this is just a matter of labels, names. Even in the philosophical fantasy, the color-blind person still knows what color is, how it works. If you say it is red, and I say it is blue, you defer to me about the label because I am not color blind. The point being that identifying color still works the same way as the cases above (what matters about having the "same" color in a specific case). This is totally separate from the science of color, and actual color-blindness, which does not resolve the skeptic's picture of color, which is to actually record that we can refuse the other person, be blind to them, their experience: as in their input, authority, importance.
If we take the case of someone actually being blind, philosophy would say they have never "experienced" color. But we can still explain the experience of color. We would just describe what matters about (our interests in) the experience of seeing color, what color does for us, as humans. It would be things like: color makes us feel alive, it allows us to organize things, it's a means of personal expression, etc.
Quoting RussellA
Again, just because there are alternative uses of "zombie" does not mean I was not being clear about something specific, and that you can take it anyway you want, or point out its multiplicity as some sort of critique of my point. I was obviously not using it "philosophically", and not in its sense as a fantasy of their actual existence, but in its metaphorical sense: that we can be mindless, unthinking, compelled by a force that is not our own, dead inside (as we can be a "ghost" of ourselves); as you even said, a "community of zombies" which is to say, conformists without individuality. This is how "Dawn of the Dead" can be seen as a social commentary.
Pointing at objects seems not a key ability to use language. Pointing at objects is primarily for learning words for children. They point at flowers viz. say flower and keep repeating trying to learn the word.
But when one is pointing at slabs saying "Bring me a slab.", that is to confirm that you want the slab brought to you (not a hammer or bucket), not because you didn't know what slab meant, or for any other reason.
I was unsure of your claims that pointing at objects is our key element to use language. I was not sure if it was your serious claim to mean it, or was it just a metaphor or rhetoric for something else.
Our key ability to use language is, from my point of view, not just uttering simple words, and simple sentences pointing at the object, but also being able to explain the situations, problems as well as trying to solve the problems by giving out some kind of verbal instructions or more information on the object depending on the situation that you are asking to bring, throw away, or make, and even be able to give out instruction how to get to a destination e.g. Paris from London by train or driving (book the ticket, go to the Channel Tunnel, and take the ferry ...etc) etc.
Language can deal, explain, describe, instruct a lot more complicated and abstract situations, scenarios, full stories of a novel or fiction by outlining or summarising, explain know-hows on making or repairing something etc.
Simply pointing to an object and uttering simple words sound like a limited elementary ability of language use by young children just starting to learn languages rather than key ability for the general language users.
Instead of sacking him, would it not be better for you to give him descriptive hints to recall his memory, or verbal instructions on where the slabs you are looking for are located in the site with details of what properties the slab has i.e. a small hexagonal slab in buff finish, because this is what language uses allow us to be able to do? Our memories are bound to fail time to time. :)
Just to clarify for @RussellA, my understanding of that section of the PI is an exploration of philosophy's fantasy that there is some fact about me, some thing about me, that I put into language (or try to), and the fact that it sometimes fails would only be that I didn't correctly or adequately paint the picture of my "meaning" or "intention" or "private" experience, and not that communication and understanding involves (at times, say, because of something unexpected in a situation) a continuing process of distinguishing, clarifying, expounding, etc. And the point is not about language, but to find out why we are compelled to (want to) look at ourselves this way.
And the Wittgenstein I have read and read about is unrecognisable in 's version.
But the builder game can be pressed further. It does not matter if the word "slab" refers to the slab, or to this or that "concept" of slab, or even to some transcendent, universal, absolute form of "slab". What matters is that when the builder calls "slab", the assistant brings a suitable piece of stone.
Many things follow from this, but two are central here. The first is that we do not need a theory of the meaning of "slab" in order to do the task at hand - to build the structure. All we need is the activities involved in calling for a slab and having one brought. The meaning of "slab" is not important so long as the activity proceeds.
We don't need a theory of meaning, since we have the way the word is being used.
And the second is that there are slabs to bring. Whether the slabs are material objects or ideal forms or transmogrified souls is irrelevant, so long as the assistant brings them and the builder stacks them.
The great thing here is the cleaving of the analysis of meaning away from all the metaphysical paraphernalia associated with it by millennia of philosophical speculation.
I was commenting on Linguistic Idealism there, not so much Wittgenstein proper.
And within Linguistic Idealism topic, I was offering an alternative idea, contra Linguistic Idealism...
But that should be obvious.
My critiques of Witt proper had to do with ideas that his critique of certainty really made sense more in the context of early analytics and logical positivists. I was saying that folks like Schopenhauer were already concerned with everyday things (the human condition) and things such as this... Other philosophies that aren't looking for a kind of certainty whereby language precision is paramount. I remember reading about Carnap and Ayer and such making fun of the Continentals for not being precise, for example. So there are other traditions that don't rely on such. Thus the critique about certainty, to me, becomes less relevant (as far as language precision), the more a philosophy is about "what is going on", in a more holistic sense.
But what about him are you familiar with that you think "bears littler remembrance"?
On a quick search, I wasn't able to find the source of this. Is it apocryphal? Does anyone have the original location?
I agree with you on your summation of Wittgenstein, great mind though he was, he appeared more concerned with language use then actual philosophy perhaps giving birth to philosophy of language in the meantime slightly inflated his reputation as a philosopher at the time and although significant in his own way he holds nothing to say Locke, Hobbes, Hume or Kant imo.
Recognizing that this is all personal sensibilities and such but... :up:
Many philosophers shit-talked each other. That doesn't prove much. Schop on Hegel!
Not that Stackexchange is any authority, but this answer seems apt:
Quoting Conifold
But just as anyone can take potshots at anyone, it is well to consider this next comment on that same thread:
Quoting Banno
This looks promising:
Quoting Bryan Magee
I do enjoy Brian Magee's analysis of Schopenhauer, and wrote some well-known secondary literature on Schop, so he is a good place to start. I get Tractatus, but I'd be interested to know where the influence is in Later Witt.. especially in light of that (Witt) quote.
Are you wanting an answer for why Witt admired..., or indirectly showing your dislike for wanting to learn any Schop (or at least his influence)? I know it's the latter, but you were on the verge of having an interesting conversation. Sigh.
I saw a similar start of an approach in the quotes @schopenhauer1 posted, which I began to flesh out here.
My guess is that Schopenhauer gets mixed up somewhere along the way, as others do (Plato, Kant, Descartes, Hume, etc), not because their inquiry is totally misguided, or otherwise useless, but because of the prerequisite they have for an answer (before the “first step” that “escapes notice” Witt says #305]. This might strike Witt as an inability to notice subtlety (only focused on purity), and thus the critique: “crude”.
Yes, I think this accords with what you were saying of Witt's idea of "responsibility" perhaps.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Indeed and this goes right to the heart of what I am trying to convey about why philosophies like Schop's allude the criticism of "certainty". That is because the very essence of his philosophy was about an intangible unknowable(s). The artistic genius has "something" (a sort of attunement to the Forms) in his conception. Music has "something" (it's as if the "thing-itself" (Will) personified in representational form. Will is only ever discussed as a subject-for-object, but cannot be fully understood in its unitary state as Will-proper, etc. See this whole discussion.
That is to say, this resembles nothing of the kind of "certainty" of a Russell or a Kant. Thus, this critique:
Quoting Antony Nickles
Schop has an "answer". Perhaps he was overly ambitious with his construction, but I see it more as an attempt for holistic understanding of reality, and is trying to elaborate on an insight he has (in his synthesis of Kant, Plato, other philosophers in the Western tradition, and Eastern philosophy, mainly). That is to say, philosophy is about one's (hopefully well-thought out) way of conveying one's insights and not so much a project of understanding "certainty". Wittgenstein himself was sharing his insights. So that is more the project.
To say something is “unknowable” (that I am, or aesthetics are) is not to elude our desire for purity, it is to judge in contrast to it; to find an “answer” despite conceding that standard can’t be reached; to live, but only cynically, in the shadow of skepticism. Now of course I don’t know Schopenhauer is doing this because I have not read him, but Wittgenstein concluded in the Tractatus that parts of our world were unknowable. In the PI he finds that there is rationality despite not being purely logical; he finds our ordinary criteria which embody our interests in the different kinds of things we do, in different situations, filling in the areas set aside by him (and by Kant), and learning why we are compelled to see the world as either pure or unknowable.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Now some take it that when Witt says: some things can’t be told, but only shown, that this is just a different way of conveying knowledge (he’s just being cagey). But Witt’s method is not to impart knowledge; it’s to get you to see the world (yourself) differently. So he’s not telling you “his insights”; he’s “showing you” examples of what we say (in a context), in a sense to ask: “can you see this for yourself?” in order to grasp why we desire a single standard (or give up); so you must change yourself, your “need” (#108), not what you think. He shares his style of autobiographical confessions with Montaigne, and I thought perhaps Schopenhauer, though maybe not.
So when I say there is more to our relation to the world than knowing it, I am not saying it is unknowable. For example, we don’t know someone is in pain, not because it is “unknowable”, but because when someone seems to be in pain, we don’t: “know” their pain, we react to it, to the person; their pain is a plea, a claim on us—we help them (or not); that’s how pain works. P. 225. This insight is a shift in our attitude (as a position in relation to others), a realization of our responsibilities.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Where?
I have been foolishly following you down this rabbit hole. @Banno has pointed out what's important here:
Quoting Banno
That is, your individual or private concept of "slab" can be whatever you like; it makes no difference provided that you act/react appropriately in the language-game. Like Wittgenstein's beetle, your individual or private concept "drops out of consideration as irrelevant". As I quoted from PI 199: "To understand a language means to have mastered a technique."
Quoting RussellA
As I quoted from the SEP earlier:
Quoting RussellA
What the words "pen" or "Eiffel Tower" mean to you are irrelevant to the meaning of "peffel", which means "part [your] pen and part the Eiffel Tower". Is this not what "peffel" means?
Quoting RussellA
In what way is the concept of "peffel" inaccessible to others? You have already defined it for us. Also, in what way is "peffel" a part of any language? Do you ever use the word "peffel" and, if so, how do you use it?
I have to disagree with you here. At PI 246, Wittgenstein says:
A two way process, language shapes reality and reality shapes language.
Richard Gaskin discusses Linguistic Idealism in the YouTube Determinate Content #3: Richard Gaskin on Linguistic Idealism
Suppose someone names an object in the world consisting of the the top half of an apple and the bottom half of an table and names it "appable". Pretty soon people would discover that this object named "appable" had no practical use, and the word would drop out of language. Suppose someone names an object in the world consisting of the top half of an apple and the bottom half of an apple and names it "apple". Pretty soon people would discover that this object named "apple" had a practical use, and the word would become a part of language.
We are told to "bring me an apple". On the one hand, we discover an apple in the world, and are than able to take it to them. Our language has determined not only our conception of the world but also the kind of contact we have with the reality of the world. But on the other hand, the world has shaped our language in that there has been something in the world that has been named "apple" in language.
There has been a synergy between he world and our language. A mutual dependence of which neither takes precedence.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Yes, life began on Earth about 3,700,000,000 years ago, and for about 3,699,900,000 years life managed to survive and evolve within a harsh and unforgiving world, suggesting that language is not fundamental in how life is able to interact with the world.
Quoting schopenhauer1
There would be no word in language for an object that had no use.
PI 43 For a large class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word "meaning" it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language. And the meaning of a name is sometimes explained by pointing to its bearer.
There are an almost infinite number of possible objects that may be discovered in the world outside language, each of which can be named. Objects found useful outside language may be named, such that the word "appable" is discarded and the word "apple" is kept. This leaves about 500,000 useful words in a typical language.
Wittgenstein wrote that the meaning of a word is its use in language. Within the world outside language, the object appable is as real as the object apple, but within language, the word "appable" may be discarded as of no practical use outside language whilst the word "apple" may be kept as having practical use outside language.
Note that some words such as "unicorn" don't exist in the world outside language but do have a use in language.
Therefore, all possible words have a meaning, whether "appable" or "apple". Yet some of these words are more useful than others, meaning that PI 43 can be reworded as "all possible words have a meaning, but only those words that have a use, whether inside or outside language are used in language.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Behaviour emerges from an interplay between brain and world.
George Lakoff talks about Embodied Cognition in the YouTube How Brains Think: The Embodiment Hypothesis
This is related to Enactivism, the proposal that cognition arises through a dynamic interaction between an acting organism and its environment.
He says that we are born with certain embodied structures in place, within the 100 billion neurons and between 100 trillion and 1 quadrillion connections between these neurons
Within these neurons and connections are embodied concepts. This has the consequence that, in a sense, cognition drops out. When I see a glass of water, it is not the case that "I think I need to drink" but rather "I need a drink".
This is the same point Wittgenstein makes in PI 246:"It cannot be said of me at all (except perhaps as a joke) that I know I am in pain", because when "I am in pain", there is no point in saying "I know I am in pain".
It may be wrong to describe human behaviour as "intelligent behaviour" if cognition has dropped out of consideration. Unless one defines "a behaviour that allows the body to survive" as "intelligent".
After 3.7 billion years of evolution, the brain has evolved in synergy with the world in which it is living. The structure of the neurons in the brain and their connections is therefore a direct consequence of the particular world in which it exists.
It is then the case that behaviour emerges from an interplay between the brain and the world, accepting that the structure of the brain is a direct consequence of the particular world within which it exists.
The experience within my mind caused by a wavelength in the world of 700nm is a private experience, inexpressible to others, in the same sense as Wittgenstein's use of the word.
Quoting Antony Nickles
I agree, this is the point of PI 293, that the beetle drops out of consideration in the language game. Within the communal language game we can talk about the colour "red".
Quoting Antony Nickles
I can talk about the colour "red" as being defined as having a wavelength of between 625nm to 750nm, but I can't talk about the private experience within my mind caused by a wavelength of 700nm in the world, as this is inexpressible to others.
Sounds like something that happens routinely in engineering labs.
Points to waveform on oscilloscope and says, "The op amp doesn't have the balls to do the job."
We have to learn the meaning of a word before we can use it successfully.
Consider the word "angst".
We could use the dictionary, where "angst" is defined as "a feeling of deep anxiety or dread, typically an unfocused one about the human condition or the state of the world in general". "Anxiety" is defined as "a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease about something with an uncertain outcome". Continuing, "worry" is defined as "feel or cause to feel anxious or troubled about actual or potential problems". "Troubled" is defined as "beset by problems or difficulties". Either the definitions become circular or are never ending.
The alternative to understanding the word "angst" is by reference to the world outside language. If "pointing" to something in the world cannot be used in our learning of a word such as "angst", then what is the alternative? How do we learn the meaning of "angst" without resorting to "pointing"?
I am using "pointing" to include its synonyms, such as signalling, showing, indicating, gesturing, flagging, labelling, motioning, etc.
Par for any commentary on Wittgenstein. Each and every one of us is familiar with a different Wittgenstein. Add to that the premise that multiple interpretations are most often caused by ambiguity from the author, and the logical inference is that Wittgenstein is very likely highly ambiguous. Therefore the direction of discussion in a focused commentary on Wittgenstein ought to be the question of how to distinguish intention behind ambiguity, and, the relevance of the intentional use of ambiguity in philosophy. And here we find issues like what type of rhetoric ought the intentional use of ambiguity be classified as, is this a form of "sophistry", "deception", etc..
There are different uses of the world "meaning". The absence of pain means a lot to me and "pain" means "a sharp unpleasant sensation usually felt in some specific part of the body".
Quoting Luke
My concept of "peffel" is inaccessible to others as my concept of violet is inaccessible to others. Can you describe in words your personal experience of the colour violet to a colour blind person?
This is why I emphasised the distinction between meaningfulness (significance) and word meaning (definition, sense) in my previous post, where I said: "What the words "pen" or "Eiffel Tower" mean to you are irrelevant to the meaning of "peffel"". That is, the personal significance to you of "pen" and "Eiffel Tower" are irrelevant to the meaning or sense of "peffel", which you defined as "part [your] pen and part Eiffel Tower". The word "peffel" can be used by anyone to mean ""part [your] pen and part Eiffel Tower" regardless of your personal feelings about the words "pen" or "Eiffel Tower".
Quoting RussellA
Violet is not your concept. But your understanding of the concept is accessible to others, depending on how you use it.
Quoting RussellA
I don't need to describe my personal experience in order to use the word "violet" appropriately. And neither does a colour blind person.
The point is that our experiences are irrelevant to linguistic meaning; to language use. This is not to say we don't have experiences. Things can still be significant or meaningful to you; but the way it feels or looks or tastes, etc. is irrelevant to the meaning or use of a word.
This is obviously not true especially when you consider how a child learns.
Quoting RussellA
I don't see how these are inaccessible in the same way. Violet is inaccessible because experiential qualities are inherently indescribable. Peffel is inaccessible presumably only because its an unusual concept but I see it as no different from a concept like a liger or mule or any other kind of hybrid thing that actually exists in reality and so is therefore an accessible concept.
Tbh I don't think Wittgenstein's private language is about inaccessibility apart from the trivial notion that all my immediate experiences are inaccessible. The point, as I interpret it (maybe I am wrong), is not the inaccessibility but that of I am the only one using the language, the language becomes totally redundant.
It is not just humans, but machines such as oscilloscopes use language. They don't use phonetic utterance like humans do, but they use wave forms to say the op. amp has no balls to do the job. Human engineer looking at the wave form displayed on the oscilloscope, obviously knew what the oscilloscope was saying, and interpreted it in human language form.
In computer programming, there are Programming Language called "Machine Language", which only computer processors (such as Motorola 68000) can understand.
Or if you write programs in C language, you first write the instruction in high level language which is friendly to humans. Then you must compile the program using machine compiler, which will read your instructions to machine only readable code. Most of the Apps, and software system runs as the machine only readable language.
It's almost as if Witt, in his enthusiasm for Frege's new project of logic realism, (during Tractatus period), took the opposite approach to Schop. For early Witt, all is phenomenal. Anything that cannot be discussed in an observable way was meaning-less or non-sense. Of course, if he read Schop's Fourfold Root of the Principle of Sufficient Reason, he might save himself the whole Picture Theory.
But anyways, Schop's books are all about understanding the "inner" part of existence (subect-for-object), and how that is that the internal and external interact, etc. Early Witt, could not stand philosophy venturing into the internal aspects. But that's my point is that one does not need a precision of "sense and reference" to describe one's metaphysical theory. One does not need things to be observed. One can describe abstract ideas and felt sensations, intelligibly. Now, later Wittgenstein, might grant this, but then say that one can always be in error of what one really means, understands, or thinks they said. But I don't think that this disproves that communication about abstract ideas (non observational), are thus irretrievably hopeless. Rather, as perhaps you are getting, it is your "responsibility" to see if there is insight there (for yourself, regarding the world).
Quoting Antony Nickles
Ugh, this is now your problem. You (Witt perhaps) seems to be fitting all philosophers in this idea of trying to find a single standard, which creates a strawman that the Great Wittgenstein can then "show" is in error.
Besides the fact that this whole "showing and not telling" is besides the point to my point (because insights can be demonstrated to the audience in many different ways.. as I have been trying to convey regarding Schop), I can tell you that because we might have various ways of viewing words that might be in conflict, it doesn't mean that we turn off our ability to think about the bigger questions of life. Schopenhauer was all about the bigger questions. The way you phrase it, if you are not reading an engineering manual or learning a sports game, or talking about last night's dinner, you are a fool. And you know what, for the pedantic fool who thinks we should go back to pedantic banter and minutia, well they can do something with themselves. They can keep their self-important heads right up their ass, as they seem to like it there. Either way, Wittgenstein is sharing his in-sight... Whether you think through some clever demonstration of language-games or through clear and eloquent exposition (often on abstract/subjects like unitary Will.. like Schopenhauer).
Quoting Antony Nickles
And this is what most good philosophers are trying to do! Witt is not special. Sorry.
Quoting Antony Nickles
That is just describing forms of empathy.. Witt's hatred for psychologism (Frege's influence especially) is seen throughout early and later Witt, to his detriment, I'm afraid to say.
People can and do use words without knowing the meaning of the word. I am not sure if there is such a thing as absolute right meaning of words anyway. Meaning is arbitrary and contingent, i.e. it changes, gets obsolete, newly made up etc. You can learn a meanings of some words, but you may not know the hidden meanings of the word used by another group of people or a person as well. In that case, can you communicate with the group of the people with the word you thought you knew the meaning of? Highly unlikely.
And I might use a word thinking it is the right meaning to mean what I think, but you might interpret it in totally different way. Is meaning then precondition of using language? No.
In the world is something X that has been named "X". The foreman experiences this something X in the world in his mind as the concept Y. His assistant experiences this something X in the world in his mind as the concept Z.
As shown by PI 293, the beetle, the concepts Y and Z, drop out of consideration in the language game.
It is true that what the something X is in the world is irrelevant as long as foreman says "bring me X" and the assistant brings X.
It is true that the foreman's concept Y may be different to the assistant's concept Z
The foreman may look at something X in the world, but if this observation didn't give rise to an inner concept Y, they would be a philosophical zombie, and wouldn't be able to say "bring me X". Similarly, the assistant may look at something X in the world, but if this observation didn't give rise to an inner concept Z, they would also be a philosophical zombie, and wouldn't be able to bring X.
In order for something to happen, for there to be an activity, there must be all the following:
1) There must be an X in the world
2) X must have been named "X"
5) The foreman must say "bring me X"
3) The something X that the foreman looks at must give rise to his inner concept Y
4) The something X that the assistant looks at must give rise to his inner concept Z
If one of these is missing, then nothing will happen. There will be no activity and the assistant won't bring X.
The same principles apply also to "bring" and "me".
If "X" didn't mean X, then nothing would happen and there would be no activity.
How can you successfully use the word "bamba" in a sentence if you don't know what it means?
How can a child successfully use the word "mwanasesere" if they don't know what is means?
Quoting Apustimelogist
It is true that I can define "peffel" as part "pen and part Eiffel Tower".
But the problem leads to my personal concepts of "pen" and "Eiffel Tower", both of which are unique to me, as they have developed over a lifetime of experiences that only I have had.
The definitions become circular and never ending, because you have kept on looking for them. They are not themselves circular and never ending in nature.
Something is circular and never ending doesn't follow that one cannot learn them.
Words like Angst don't exist in the physical world. It is an invented word by someone, and the meaning was given to it. I recall the first time when I was confronted with the word, I had no idea what it meant, but by reading up the definition in the book, I roughly knew what it meant. But my understanding of it was still not clear. But I was able to use the word even with roughly knowing what it meant.
It is a state of mind, which one cannot point to. It can be only described or explained by other words.
Synonyms are not to be used blindly to replace another synonyms just because they are synonyms. They all bear similar meanings, but depending on the circumstance and situation you are describing, you cannot use them as if they were the same meanings.
What do you mean by "successfully" here? Could you please clarify?
True, once "peffel" has been defined as "part my pen and part Eiffel Tower", anyone can use it in language regardless of my personal concepts of either "my pen" or "Eiffel Tower".
In the same way, anyone can use the word "pain" in language, regardless of anyone's personal sensation of pain.
Quoting Luke
There are public concepts, such that "Violet light is at the higher end of the visible spectrum, with a wavelength from 380 to 450 nm". There are also private concepts, such as my personal experience when looking at something in the world having a wavelength of 400nm.
Quoting Luke
I agree, as with the beetle in PI 293, the beetle drops out of consideration in the language game.
True, they don't have the same meaning, only similar meanings. As Wittgenstein said, family resemblances.
Quoting Corvus
For the listener to understand the meaning of the sentence.
We cannot learn the meaning of every word we use in language just from the dictionary, otherwise none of the words we use would have any connection with the world outside language. Sooner or later, there must be some words we use that we learn their meaning directly from the world outside language
The question is, if not "pointing" from the word to something in the world outside language, then how?
Most of the words you listed as synonyms for pointing to seem wrong words for what you meant by pointing to in the context.
Quoting RussellA
What if the other party didn't know the meaning of "bamba", then what? What would be the point of you saying it thinking that you knew the meaning? You say to me "I don't like bamba". But having listened to your sentence, I don't know what it means. You knew the meaning of bamba, and said confidently what you said to me would make successful use of language. But the other party doesn't know what you are saying. I might ask you back "What the heck is bamba?" At that point, have you successfully used your language?
My point is your claim that knowing the meaning of words is a precondition of using language seems wrong.
True, if I said "xx xyx yyxx yxyx", and neither of us knew the meaning of any of the words used, would anything meaningful arise from our conversation?
One can make successful use of language using the word "bamba" without knowing the meaning of "bamba". Consider the following sentence.
You told me you like bamba, but I don't bloody know what you mean by "bamba".
That is a use of language using the word "bamba", and the speaker made up a sentence which any English speaker would understand without knowing the meaning of "bamba".
Yes, of course. I would say to you "What the heck do you mean by that? I have no clue what the bloody non-sense you are talking about." This is a meaningful sentence in our conversation.
The foreman does not say "bring me X". He says "X".
Quoting RussellA
If "X" simply meant the object, there would be no activity. The meaning of "X" is determined by the activity and not simply by the name of the object.
Thanks for catching that. It’s #308. “How does the philosophical problem about mental processes and states and about behaviourism arise?——The first step is the one that altogether escapes notice.”
True, that's why the foreman doesn't just say "X" but rather "bring me X". The word "bring" determines the activity, not the object "X".
At least we agree that meaning is an important part of communication.
The foreman does not say "bring me X". He lacks the words to say so.
(PI 2)
This language consists only of what we might think of as names of objects, but that would be wrong. That is not the way these words, the only words in this complete primitive language, function. That is the point. A language consisting of only the names of objects cannot be a complete language.
I don't think there is any helping you.
Actually no, @RussellA has a point. He said:
Quoting RussellA
Unless I am reading him wrong, this parallels an idea I had when answering in the Kit Fine thread:
Quoting schopenhauer1
Quoting Luke
We actually agree here; it’s just I didn't make it clear between the senses of “know”. Of course I can “know” you are in pain, but this sense is, as Witt says, "as it is normally used" (emphasis added)(there are actually a few ordinary senses of "know"); what you point out (and is Witt's sense of its use in this passage) is in its sense that: I recognize pain, become aware of it; see the signs, even if it is from repression, even from contextual information (not just "your behavior") say, that the mother that you loved died recently, even though you are exhibiting no signs of pain or are forcing yourself to appear happy.
Above, I meant "do not" as in: that is not how pain works (Witt will say "Grammatically), not that we cannot know. This sense of "know" is the version of "knowledge" that the skeptic would like to have (the interlocutor): knowledge of some inner process (intention, my meaning) or thing (impression, experience) that would ensure I am not wrong about you being in pain, which starts not just because we can be wrong about it (fooled, judge incorrectly), but, also, that we at times want (Cavell says, desire) there to be a space between their pain and our normal awareness of it--that we want to be buffered from their pain, from their being in pain (see below).
And this gets at the sense of ordinary "knowing" (in addition to awareness) that I am contrasting to the skeptic's use I just described (the "metaphysical use" as Witt says). This is the normal sense that I "acknowledge" pain--that the way it works** (its grammar) is that I accept or reject you because the pain is "yours" (in your body, owned by you). We also have this relation to our own pain, that we accept or deny it (suppress it; not that it is unique, un"knowable", only theirs). This is why the skeptic does not make sense (is abstracting from the grammar, and ordinary criteria and context) in saying "I know I'm in pain" (other than the normal use when we say that: as an acknowledgment to others; possibly to an accusation that I am suppressing a pain I should be "facing"--like, "yeah yeah, I know!").
And so within the desire (the prerequisite, the necessity) to have perfect (metaphysical, certain) knowledge (that your pain correspond exactly with mine or it is not valid), hides the wish (the decision, the "conviction" Witt says p. 225) to deny the other, to not be responsible for them. The way pain "works"** is that their pain is a moral claim on me to which my response reflects on my character.
(**"works" as to say: the workings of the grammar, which are the implications of (our interests in) the expression of their pain (or their words... ); not how the "language" of pain "works" in some theory of meaning, or, say, how the process of pain "works" in the body; thus why science can't do the job of philosophy (what it shows ourselves).
Can’t follow at this point. Can you give the gist in easy way?
Who said they are looking for exact certainty of someone’s pain? It’s an assumption we are not zombies and that pain is roughly negative in similar ways.
I feel like this is built on a lot of straw man assumptions about philosophy
I would think you'd say what you think I mean (paraphrase) and then ask questions about specific parts where it gets confusing, no?
I commented based on what I thought.
The blind leading the blind...
This thread gets better and better.
Now you're getting it.
Quoting RussellA
I don't see why you would call your personal experience a concept.
Quoting RussellA
Yep.
Ok bot. Same sarcastic remarks when a point is made you don’t like. What’s funny is [s]you[/s] anyone can play that game all day on anything. Posturing at its worst.
Except the bit where it doesn't matter in the slightest what the builder and the assistant have "in their heads" so long as the assistant brings the slab to the builder.
That you made the same mistake in another thread is not a good thing.
:rofl:
You just did.
Now someone will start bleating about use and mention. As if mentioning wasn't a use.
If you mean Wittgenstein and not @RussellA then you are reading him wrong.
What does "slab" mean? How does the meaning of slab differ from the builder's alleged inner concept "[s]slab[/s]Y"? And how does this differ from the assistant's inner concept "[s]slab[/s]Z"? How is it these three things - slab, y, and Z get sorted out so that the assistant brings the builder a slab? Or is it four things - slab, y, z, and whatever your inner concept is? But I think I know what "slab" means, and it is not what you or Russell means. Is it then six - slab, y, z, whatever your inner concept, his inner concept is, and my inner concept? Should we add Wittgenstein's inner concept? Is there any end to this multiplicity of confusion?
We can dispense with inner concepts and zombies and subsequent confusion. The assistant brings the builder a slab because he has been trained to do so. His training consists of being able to identify a slab and bring it to the builder. Being able to identify a slab does not mean forming an inner concept. All that is required is being able to distinguish this thing from the other things he has been trained to identify and bring. All with this one word "slab".
You know what, I think I must have misread this. I was thinking about we don't have to know explicit definitions to use words and children don't learn using explicit definitions.
Quoting RussellA
This seems a bit trivial to me because I would say it applies to a lot if not all words.
Ah, that works.
The first step,
Quoting RussellA
looking so innocent. But see §48. What is the simple here? Here is a slab; there, a block, for the purposes of the game; what could it mean for there to be a slab and a block in some absolute sense? And that's where poor @RussellA gets caught, again and again, looking for the slab-in-itself or the concept-of-slab, when these are not only unnecessary but a hinderance to seeing what is happening here.
A common sledge is to send the apprentice to the bloke at the far end of the shed to fetch the long weight. "I'll get it for you when I finish this..." comes the reply.
And see how long it is until he realises it was a long wait.
Some of the error is to think of "mwanasesere" as having any meaning at all apart from the place it has in the games we play. As if our words all have meanings apart from what we do with them. Davidson address this again in A nice derangement of epitaphs; our jokes undermine the idea of language as following rules.
No I get Witt's claim (use), but does this really satisfy you that someone "understands the meaning of a word" based on the scenario if all were zombies or had no internal "understanding/sense/point of view" of the word's meaning?
If ChatGPT got someone a slab, ChatGPT is dealing in "meaning", for example?
How strange a claim.
Well, take out “experience” (its just what you see, as in, are focusing your sight and attention on) and “within my mind” (this is the picture you’re tripping over compared to something “personal”) and “caused” (this makes it sound like the medical process of vision creates something other than just: red, like, in addition to it). You just see red.
So, try and say something (ordinary) about red in a context (situation without someone) where it would be important to point out the color. And then you have expressed something about the color; identification, differentiation, etc. along the lines of what we do with color (how it works). Your contextless abstract picture is getting you confused.
And the use of “private” is not Wittgenstein’s; it’s the skeptic’s, the interlocutor’s; it’s the “metaphysical use”; Wittgenstein contrasts that with its “ordinary use”, which has particular criteria and contexts in which it is used, which is, as I said, similar to personal, secret.
Quoting RussellA
We talk about color in particular ways; but our “talk” is not separate from something else (say, the world). Outside of the ways we talk about color is not “your” color, it’s just jibberish, madness. “That’s my color!” can only be met with “You mixed it? You have a copyright?”
To express what you see, you could paint a painting, take a picture, or have another there when you see the red sunset, and in that way, point out the amazing red you are focusing your attention on. Or you can keep it all to yourself, and then it is yours, but that is something personal; or secret, as in: you didn’t tell the cops it was a red car.
There is not some “color” in you that someone else cannot see. You’re not an alien, or a lion, you are a human being, just like me. You (and the skeptic) want to be different so that you can be singular, have something unique (but it may be the case that you are not, as I said). But the definition of a self does not work the way you picture it. We all know you: you are stubborn as hell, a creative thinker (to the point of slippery), etc.
It might help to look at my original post again after reading this; with fresh eyes, attempting to see it from a different angle. Everything you want from your position is still here.
See, I'm not interpreting RusselA that way. At least, how I see how he is formulating it, he poses a problem for "use" if it is just "use" without any internal mental states accompanying it. Hence I mentioned zombies and those who really don't understand internally a meaning, yet still "use" the word correctly (aping as Witt might say). I don't see "meaning" and "use" tied exclusively. It has to be use, but intersubjectively understood use. And the intersubjectivity part, requires the mental aspect, exactly which supposedly doesn't matter in the beetle-box. But it does, sir.
Well I should read some Schopenhauer then as I’m getting the feeling that I’d agree with his sensibility. I enjoy others who focus on our inner lives. Emerson looks at our relationship to “community” (@RussellA) in Self-Reliance and the later Heidegger considers how to think ethically in What is called thinking? But which book? Any toe-dip essays?
Quoting schopenhauer1
This is Wittgenstein’s starting point of the PI (he realizes from the beginning that we can discuss everything that was excluded in the Tractatus). His whole investigation is into why we thought we couldn’t (didn’t want to accept that we can) in the first place.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Not all philosophers attempt to solve (or accept or ignore) skepticism. There are ideas that are abstract, like justice (as I believe you mean by “non-observational”) and then there’s the desire to remove those ideas (abstract them) from the regular contexts in which they live, as some philosophy seems as if it were done in space, without history or a world around it at all.
So what Wittgenstein uncovers is not an “error” (and he is showing us what he claims is evidence, not conclusions). His insight is that the fear of the uncertainty of being wrong, being immoral (“evil” Nietszche calls it), of the future, of others, is actually a primal fear created by the human condition of our separation (thus our basic responsibility to bridge it), and that the desire to overcome that fear (and attempt to remove our responsibility) is the motivation for intellectualizing our situation as a “problem” that can be “solved”.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I agree and I applaud the effort (and I don’t think Wittgenstein would object, other than thinking that effort is a straight highway” #426). Emerson says, “We live amid surfaces [the fear that the world is “appearance”, “impressions”], and the true art of life is to skate them well.” I don’t see this as foolish, nor that Wittgenstein is avoiding big picture stuff either (morality, the creation of the self, ethics, epistemology, etc.).
Quoting schopenhauer1
No, it’s describing how pain is handled by us (or ignored), it is setting out our ordinary criteria for judgments regarding it, compared to treating it as an object of knowledge (wanting to skip over (through) the person who has it). Empathy is just part of what pain involves (even with the absence of empathy). (Also it might help to see that I had to clarify my “don’t: ‘know’ their pain” comment to @Luke above.)
Pain is used by philosophy as the “best case” of our knowledge of the other (because it’s hard for me to ignore, it’s constant, etc.). By “knowledge” here we are talking about a certain kind of “philosophical” knowledge, like an equating. Now, because there is error in the world, some philosophy (Hume for example) creates a thing between us and the world (appearances, your experience, your impressions, your sensations, etc.) which the philosopher then requires to have matched up exactly with the world, or for you and I to have an identical one or I can’t be said to “know” you (You might be an automaton! Or a zombie—which I also discussed with @RussellA here).
Quoting schopenhauer1
When has philosophy ever relied on common sense?—“assumed” anything? Plus, if we don’t investigate “knowledge” or “justice”, etc. we would never uncover all the things we have learned about the world (the assumptions, implications, criteria for judgment) but never drew out of ourselves (Wittgenstein and Socrates both say we all hold the knowledge of how our everyday world works in each one of us—Wittgenstein, because of our growing up together, by osmosis into our unconscious as it were. Hey, it’s a better metaphor than Socrates’.)
Quoting Banno
I read some Davidson in school; I’ll have to check it out. And I also enjoyed J.L. Austin’s humor, though it was a little cruel, a little, how would we say… Banno-ish? Sorry, I meant, British.
I was just pointing out your claims that
1. successful language use is only possible with knowing the meaning of words used
2. meaning of words can only be learnt by pointing at objects in the world
are absurd.
Thinking over the topic, I feel successful language use is only possible when you use language cogently to the situation. For example, if you walk into a pub, and say to the barmaid "Bring me a slab.", then of course she knows what you mean by "slab", "bring" and "me", all the words you just uttered to her. But she will think you are talking nonsense, pulling her leg or just plain barmy. You must say "A pint of larger please" or something like that, to be understood in the bar to the maid, since you walked into the bar, and you wanted a drink. No one would imagine you would walk into a pub, and look for a slab.
You should say "Bring me a slab." in the building site to your assistant, when you are working on the path or patio, and that sentence will be accepted as meaningful to your assistant and to anyone hearing you speaking.
The other point is that the meaning of words is not learnt by pointing to the objects in the world exclusively, unless it is the case with a child learning language for the first time in her life, or in certain situations such as when you are ordering or buying an item in shops or market, where the seller has many different type of goods for sale in front of you, and you are telling him, that particular item is the one you would like to buy. You would point to it, and say "I will take that one."
There are many words you cannot point to, but you know the meanings, and keep using them in daily life such as "angst", "when", "many" "know" "etc" ... etc.
Hmm. Again, "Slab" is an Australian term for a carton of two dozen tins of beer.
Another testimony that meaning is contingent. G'day mate :D
As regards the thing the assistant brings to the builder, are you a Platonist, such that the slab is a Platonic object that exists independently of the mind and is able to exist through time and space, or a Nominalist?
I am a Nominalist, such that the thing is a particular set of atoms, etc, that exists in the form it has at one moment in time and space, and exists independently of the mind. IE, the particular set of atoms, etc, is one unique, momentary example in the world of what we have in our minds as the general concept "slab".
I agree that only part of my personal experience is that of a concept.
If I have a personal experience as a consequence of looking at a wavelength of 700nm in the world, there are two aspects to this personal experience, the phenomenological and the cognitive.
As regards the phenomenological, I have a particular momentary colour experience caused by the wavelength 700nm
As regards the cognitive, at the same time as having the phenomenological experience, I think of this particular colour as "red". Even though all my phenomenological experiences of the wavelengths 625nm to 750nm have been different, there still has been something similar about them, and this similarity is what a concept is. A similarity in different phenomenological experiences.
It is on these concepts existing in the mind that language must be built upon.
I think that Wittgenstein seems to apply his skepticism to mental states in a way which I find just as convincing. I think it is possible to deflate the mental aspects so that really it is just all "use". Or to be more specific, "use" is entirely about states and transitions between states, or in other words: if i am in some experientisl state, what will the next state be? and these experiential states will include all of our linguistic interactions, social behaviors and even "internal" thought processes. The question of why or what causes state transitions is hidden from us, caused by the underlying neural interactions to which we have no access or are "blind" to.
Yes, the successful use of language requires several things, of which one is using words in the correct context. Another is knowing the meaning of the words used, in that if the barmaid didn't know the meaning of "bring", she would never be able to bring you your pint of lager.
Quoting Corvus
We know the meaning of angst, not because we can point to angst, but because we can point to to the visible effect of angst in the world, such as a person's behaviour.
We can have the word "pain" in language because we can point to pain behaviour, whereby the word "pain" replaces pain behaviour.
If not by "pointing", how do we learn the meaning of words such as angst?
Exactly. I can say to a robot "bring me a slab", and it would be able to do so, even though it didn't know the meanings of the words.
But it can only do so because a human, who did know the meanings of those words, had programmed it in the first place.
When the builder calls "slab" the assistant does not bring a mackerel or an onion. Whatever theory you have about what you think must be going on in his mind, the fact is, he brings a slab.
What you ignore is that in this language there is no word for 'bring'. "Slab" does not function simply as the name of an object. "Slab" means bring the builder a slab. "Slab" gets its meaning from its use. Its use is determined by the form or way of life. Nomads do not have the word "Slab". Not because there are no slabs but because they do not build, slabs are not used in this way.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Cavell in The Later Wittgenstein makes the point that Wittgenstein never denied that we can know what we think and feel.
Other philosophers, I believe, are under the impression that Wittgenstein denies that we can know what we think and feel, and even that we can know ourselves. This extraordinary idea comes, no doubt, from such remarks of Wittgenstein's as: "I can know what someone else is thinking, not what I am thinking" (II, p. 222); "It cannot be said of me at all (except perhaps as a joke) that I know I am in pain" (§5!46). But the "can" and "cannot" in these remarks are grammatical; they mean "it makes no sense to say these things" (in the way we think it does); it would, therefore, equally make no sense to say of me that I do not know what I am thinking, or that I do not know I am in pain. The implication is not that I cannot know myself, but that knowing oneself-though radically different from the way we know others--is not a matter of cognizing (classically, "intuiting") mental acts and particular sensations.
As Wittgenstein also writes, the sensation is not a nothing.
PI 304 "But you will surely admit that there is a difference between pain-behaviour accompanied by pain and pain-behaviour without any pain?"—Admit it? What greater difference could there be?—"And yet you again and again reach the conclusion that the sensation itself is a nothing"—Not at all. It is not a something., but not a nothing either!
If the assistant had no intrinsic theory in their mind as to the meaning of words, they would be bringing onions as often as they brought slabs.
Quoting Fooloso4
This is circular. If "slab" gets its meaning from use, then how do you know how to use it before knowing what it means.
I have worked with Bedouin nomads, and we were using the word slab all the time.
If the assistant brought onions he would either be out of a job or undergo further training. Having an intrinsic theory of slabs cannot determine whether that theory matches what it is supposed to be a theory of.
Does my dog have an intrinsic theory in her mind when she brings the ball when I say "ball". Does it even matter, as long as she brings the ball? If she had such a theory it is the ball which determines whether it is the right theory.
Quoting RussellA
Use refers to the activity of building. The meaning is determined by the role of "slab" in this activity. He has been trained to bring a slab when the builder says "slab". If he brings an onion he will have to undergo further training or be out of a job.
Quoting RussellA
What does it mean when they use the word slab?
my point, or @RussellA rather, is that Witts premise about “use” cannot be solely what picks out meaning. You mentioned “state changes” implying some functionalism whereby mental can be there but it’s about change of state, maybe anticipation of next use or something. But whatever you want to call it, that is an internal mental phenomenon that has to take place. Not only that, there has to be a sort of internal “understanding” in order to use the word. As the zombie case demonstrates, use alone, without some internal understanding, is not “meaning”. In other words, meaning has to “mean something” to a subject. It’s not just use in abstraction, but someone’s idea of use having a significance to the person.
Edit: this indicates to me that Witts premise is either that meaning is never really known (meaning skeptic) and has to leave it there or meaning is use, in which case use alone would be wrong as meaning has to have some sort of internal component. If he is saying that, then it is unclear but p43 should then read something like “intersubjective ideas of use within a language communuty”.
This is the problem with computational understanding of consciousness. Process without mental is not conscious though intelligent. A computers monitor and keyboard is an output and an input bit it is not the eyes and ears of a computer or anything. The computation in the circuitry is not actually thinking. It’s all in relation to someone who does- someone with mental states.
The human needs to be there or it is nothing.
A "slab" can refer to a slab of concrete used in a builder's yard or a slab of cake used in a cake shop.
If it is the type of slab used in a builder's yard, it may be described as a large, thick, flat piece of stone or concrete, typically square or rectangular in shape. But such as slab can have many uses: as a roof, as a road barrier, as a floor, as a counterweight, etc.
But we know the meaning of "slab" even before we have decided what we want to use it for. In fact, we cannot use the slab until we understand what the slab is. Therefore, it is not the case that we have to use something in order to discover what its name is.
I have shown some example sentences which can be meaningfully used without knowing the meaning of the word in the sentence in the previous posts such as "I don't know what the word bring means."
Quoting RussellA
What would be observed behaviour of someone's state of angst like?
What if someone was acting as if he / she was in pain? How would you be able to tell if the person was acting or really in pain, or just expressing some mental stress and frustration in gesture, or anger? And what is it that you call "pain behaviour"? Is there such thing as formal pain behaviour?
I would rather have thought one learns the word pain by feeling it oneself , or reading about the description of pain rather than looking at someone else's pain behaviour.
But my point is that most philosophers never asked for certainty of things like "pain". This is a false assumption, and thus becomes a strawman that Witt gets to heroically knock down. I am calling it out as a wrong assumption rather than a legitimate characterization. And again, always back to this, but the only contender for his interlocutor is his own Tractatus and early anal-ytics who focused on sense and reference. So yeah, his theories work best as an antidote to those philosophers.
If someone like Hume or a Locke had a theory on sensations or whatnot, those are theories and theories are people's best attempt at answering questions, leading to perhaps more questions or useful for constructing various ideas and worldviews. More sharing of in-sights. So much straw.
That may be what he is "saying" but he rarely "says it" because he's busy trying to ask question after question. You may think that's cute and clever and a hipster way of "demonstrating his point".. Maybe even saying the error in understanding of his point mimics the error in our greater understanding (and hence our responsibility to really "get" each other), but it just comes off as pedantic, pretentious, and annoying. He admitted that he tried to make it a more expositional piece but failed, so perhaps you are reading into his method a wee-bit too much, as Witt has to be a hero apparently, not just someone who couldn't figure out how to explain it. But assuming all of this was a clever style-choice, question after question after question with little to no punchline, this itself is unsympathetic to the reader, and lacks empathy. If someone sat next to me in a diner and explained their theory to me by way of "demonstration" which meant asking question after question without a punchline, I would feel like punching him in the nose and calling him out for trolling me.
At best it would be a parody of Socrates, in which I would be okay with that. At worst he really was trying to "convey" something, in which case- punch on the nose :wink: .
It can but neither of these is what slab means in the builder's language.
Quoting RussellA
In the builder's language it cannot be described at all, but what it means can be shown by bringing the builder a slab when he says slab.
Quoting RussellA
All of its uses are uses within the activity of building.
Quoting RussellA
In the builder's language it means one thing - bring me a slab. Pointing to a slab does not explain the meaning of "slab".
Quoting RussellA
As Wittgenstein says:
(PI 43)
In the larger context of our language, pointing to a slab may explain the meaning of the name, the bearer of the name, the thing we are referring to when we say slab, but, as the builder's language shows, a language is not a collection of names.
Pointing to a cog does not explain what a cog is. If you find a cog and ask me what it is, my pointing to it and saying "this is what it is" or "it is a cog" is not an adequate explanation. An adequate explanation must include what it is used for.
You might decide to use it for a paperweight or door stop, but that does not mean that a cog is a paperweight or door stop. In this case, the meaning of cog is not determined by your use but by its use as a functional part of a machine.
PI 43 For a large class of cases—though not for all—in which we employ the word "meaning" it can be defined thus: the meaning of a word is its use in the language. And the meaning of a name is sometimes explained by pointing to its bearer.
This has been my problem with PI 43, in that it states that the meaning of a word is its use in the language.
The word "mwanasesere" clearly has a use, as we are basing a discussion around it. Even if it has no intrinsic meaning, it has an extrinsic meaning deriving from the other words within the sentence.
However, if the intrinsic meaning of any word is irrelevant to its being able to take part in the language game, but that each word does have an extrinsic meaning deriving from the other words within the sentence, then we end up with a language, whilst being internally coherent, is totally self-referential.
In PI 2, Wittgenstein opposes the Referentialism of Augustine , where the word "slab" names a slab in the world.
In PI 19, Wittgenstein writes "Bring me a slab", and slabs clearly exist in the world. But is this world in the Investigations a world that exists inside language or a world that exists outside of language?
Does Wittgenstein in the Investigations say?
If the barmaid doesn't know the meaning of X in the sentence "X me a lager", then the sentence cannot be meaningfully be used in the context of a pub, though it is true that it could be meaningfully be used in the context of a language class.
Quoting Corvus
Isn't learning the word pain by feeling it oneself the point of Wittgenstein's Private Language Argument?
Is it possible to learn the meaning of every word one uses just from a dictionary?
You wouldn't walk into a pub, and say to the barmaid "X me a beer". That implies, even you, the speaker doesn't know what he is talking about, and what X means.
If you really didn't know what "Bring" meant, and for some reason, if the barmaid didn't know the meaning either, but you still wanted beer to be served to you, you could go and point to the menu, and the beer will be served to you for sure. It is a blooming pub.
Quoting RussellA
Does that mean that, if you have never seen someone groaning and twisting their bodies with pain, you would never know what pain is? People react to pain differently, and also pain behaviours are all different depending what kind of pain one is having. Some people don't show any reaction to pain at all, if the pain is not severe enough, or if the pain sufferer doesn't want any body to know he is in pain.
Quoting schopenhauer1
I’ve addressed this confusion over “use” here when I focused on the sense (another word Wittgenstein swaps for “use”) in showing how the Lion Quote p. 225, in the context, has the use as a fact and not an empirical statement or otherwise to make a point about a picture of language. From that discussion:
“Witt's focus on "use" has been a stumbling block in the responses, so I wanted to point out that it is not the idea that use (some internal force/decision) determines or is the basis for "meaning". There are multiple versions ("senses") of a concept; one determines the use from the context (afterwards). "Every word has a different character in a different context." PI, p. 181. Not to say we do not sometimes chose what we say, but senses (uses) exist outside and prior to us; the same confusion is that every word/action is 'intended' - caused by something internal. The idea of a sentence or a word in isolation is only a thing in some philosophy--stemming from the desire to tether it to something determinate, certain, universal."
I point this out only as you all are imagining "use" as if language were under my control (not what I say, but what it "means"), or that the "meaning" is "caused" by my "intention"--that "use" is in the sense that I operate language or that, every time (or generally), there is some "agreement" or decision (inter-subjective or not) about what the words "mean" (rather than just an ongoing process of clarification after an expression if there is something odd, unexpected "Did you intend to offend her?". Life is meaningful in certain ways, as evidenced by the ordinary criteria that are evidence about what matters to us, what counts as what. That this breaks down at times makes the skeptic feel we need to have some connection between something internal (my intention, meaning) and something external.
You haven't been on some the the building sites that I have been on, where a slab of cake has been the highlight of the day.
Quoting Fooloso4
Unless it weighs 10 tonnes, then it would be inconvenient.
Quoting Fooloso4
Yes, but we must understand what the slab is before knowing how best to use it.
Quoting Fooloso4
Unless the assistant is a foreign worker who doesn't know the language yet.
Quoting Fooloso4
One can point not only to objects such as slabs, mountains, trees but also to actions such as running, walking, wincing.
Developing the idea, one can then point to a behaviour such as wincing, and replace the behaviour by the word "pain". On the assumption that every effect has a cause, together with the natural inclination of humans to conflate effect with cause, we can then start to include the word "pain" within our language as referring to something that is hidden from sight.
You quoted me and then quoted Cavell. You are going to have to explain the connection (or disconnection) if you want me to understand.
There is another problem with the pain behaviour of others. What if the person was acting as if he was in pain? How do you tell if it is genuine pain or acting or pretending to be in pain?
Yes, as Wittgenstein wrote:PI 304 "But you will surely admit that there is a difference between pain-behaviour accompanied by pain and pain-behaviour without any pain?"—Admit it?
You contrasted the metaphysical with the interlocutor and the ordinary use with Wittgenstein.
Cavell is pointing out that Wittgenstein accepts both the ordinary and the metaphysical, ie PI 304 Not at all. It is not a something., but not a nothing either!
Cavell in The Later Wittgenstein makes the point that Wittgenstein never denied that we can know what we think and feel.
Neither of us have been on the building site where the builder's language occurs, but Wittgenstein gives us enough information to know what the word slab means as it is used there. You keep conflating the builder's language with other language games.
Quoting RussellA
All the assistant needs to know is to bring a slab when the builder calls "Slab!". The builder needs to know how to build with slabs, but there are no words for instructing the builder. His knowledge is not based on a language that consists only of the words “block”, “pillar”, “slab”, “beam”.
Quoting RussellA
He will not be an assistant unless or until he learns the language. He will not learn it by pointing to "blocks" and "slabs". He can only learn it by learning how those words are used.
Quoting RussellA
You are agreeing with Wittgenstein that there are different kinds of words, that not all words are the names of objects.
How do I know that you are pointing to running rather than the runner?
It is still the case that a language is not a collection of names, even if those names name activities.
He adds "The paradox disappears only if we make a radical break with the idea that language always functions in one way, always serves the same purpose: to convey thoughts - which may be about houses, pains, good and evil, or whatever." - PI. 304
It seems saying the word pain can convey your sensation of pain to someone by expressing it in description with language. It doesn't say that you learn the word pain by looking at someone's pain behaviour.
The sensation of pain is only accessible to the owner of the sensation. Therefore the observer of the other person's pain doesn't know if it is pain or pretention of pain. The observer can only guess. Meanings learnt from guessings are bound to be empty and unreal. :)
Sure, but this language game (the uses) learned from a community is not some Platonic "thing" but is rather the various instantiations of understanding in each individual (internally). Thus the beetle-box actually seems at odds with this, as if internal understanding doesn't count here. It is directly involved, and has to be. I may never know the beetle in someone else's box, but I better have a notion of some sort of beetle in a box. If that notion itself is missing, then there is no meaning had, even though, technically "use" can be still had in terms of how the word is being thrown around in the community of language users and acted upon. ChatGPT can act like a language user, and use the terms or misuse the terms, but no meaning is had for ChatGPT, only the person who has an internal sense using ChatGPT.
The past criteria of judgement upon whether a word is correctly used (even if it is the individually learned collective wisdom of a community), and the judging itself, is had within a person's internal mental space.
But Wittgenstein is going further here. What sense can we make in saying that an individual is “judging” something in internal mental space. This, in principle, cannot be learned from the collective wisdom of a community. There is no criteria to teach someone how to do this. So why even use this terms like “judging” or “using criteria” to try to express anything at all for this private activity.
Imagine I produce a bunch of what appears to you as random symbols. And I proceed to tell you that this is a language. If you ask, “how do you use these symbols”, and I reply, “I cannot tell you how to use them, but rest assure I know how to use them in similar ways as how you use your language, and thus it is a language.” I believe you can rightfully say that I have no idea what I am trying to say or express. This also goes for these claims of judging private activities within the mind.
Pain is just one example among many--as is the picture of reference, correspondence; (but they are not the only manifestation, as neither is positivism); all of Wittgenstein's discussions are examples: rule-following, the fantasy of "mental objects", the other as unknown, "seeing", "thinking", etc. Think of Descartes falling back on God as our standard of "perfection", or Plato creating the abstract universal as a measure of "knowledge", Kant's imperative, etc. This does not apply to all philosophers, nor does it preclude their contribution to philosophical issues; and Wittgenstein is not scolding them, or dismissing them, not saying they are wrong" (like he has an answer that is right, or is dismissing them). Perhaps you feel the pull of that fear and desire (of and in response to skepticism) is silly or unnecessary; or, if it is just a matter of interest, and Wittgenstein or Descartes of Hume can't help you feel that sense of being lost, then there is not any argument that will spur that curiosity, and thus be able to see the desire to alleviate it, "solve" it. (And, again, I believe you are thinking of the sense of "certainty" as confidence, or the like, and that is not what Wittgenstein is getting at when he is looking into the desire for "crystalline purity", so, again, let's let go of that.)
Quoting schopenhauer1
The thing Wittgenstein is trying to get us to realize is this need to "answer" what the skeptic records (that knowledge cannot solve everything); and to see we are making it a "question" (as if it is an intellectual problem), say, when we find out that we have been wrong when we thought we "knew" (as Descartes says in his intro, as if knowledge precludes error; thus, he (and Plato) start to panic: "What is knowledge then?"), that we sometimes do not know what we "ought" to do, how to come to an understanding, that sometimes we speak past each other. Not that these issues are not important, but that, in response, the skeptic (Witt's "philosopher") abstracts--as in: removes the issue from any context in which it arose--from our shared interests, judgments (which criteria embody), which ordinary criteria Wittgenstein is claiming are just as relevant for doing philosophy, investigating its issues.
No I am not saying we judge others' private activities, but that "use" needs an internal mental component for there to be meaning at all. I don't have to know how you judge. In fact, I don't have to know you are a real person and not a robot. If everyone were robots (except me), and only I had an internal "mental" properties, than it would be solely me, and no one else that is keeping meaning alive in the world. However, if we lived in a universe where everything was behavior, and there was no mental events at all, then whatever is going on is not meaning.
Now you can Witt me to death, by saying "Aha! But it's precisely our inability to make such "certain" statements that he is showing is impossible". Then I would say that if this is not the case, then "use" itself is also lost, as you need "something" for which is "using". Otherwise, you are not just playing language-games, but word-games with the word "use". Rather, "use" becomes functions in a program, and not a meaning. I am sure that we are talking about meaning and not functions.
How is it he is advocating for anything other than our inability to be accurate, or our ability to possibly be in error of what others are saying? It's more a "negative" (in the what is flawed) than positive (how to fix). I've heard of Ordinary Language Philosophy, but I believe that came after...
I'll add @Antony Nickles to this one:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/840860
Quoting schopenhauer1
You are overlooking this: "After several unsuccessful attempts to weld my results together into
such a whole, I realized that I should never succeed. ...my thoughts were soon crippled if I tried to force them on in any single direction against their natural inclination.——And this was, of course, connected with the very nature of the investigation." PI, Preface (emphasis added)
It is the motivation to "force" philosophy into a "whole"; a generalized, abstract, single answer, which are the pictures that Wittgenstein is investigating, through which he realizes our fear of skepticism, the desire for a standard of perfect knowledge, which is the revelation/revolution the Investigations is trying to bring about.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Well I will grant you that it is frustrating, and that Wittgenstein is unsympathetic, however, just look at @RussellA's unwillingness to see any picture but the one he has that includes some fact in me that ensures that I am unique, that what I say and see is only mine. Despite considerable effort @Banno and @Luke have been unable to say anything to convince him of any other perspective. And I have been unable to convey to you the desire for a metaphysical answer to address the fear within a statement like "But surely another person can't have THIS pain!" (#253) So, yes, it is necessary. The method is hard to see, and his style requires a lot of work (for you to find for yourself an answer to his questions and cryptic statements that makes sense), but this intransigence is the problem he is addressing (along with thinking these are, or should be, easy things to see, simply explanations); you take his style as unnecessary or some weakness, but it is hard to understand because it is complicated (p. 212), and it takes the work that it does because the person for which it is written has to work through their defenses, their reluctance to change what they want, to accept that our knowledge is insufficient to live our lives. If you haven't, I would take a look at the Cavell I attached from p 56 about the necessity of Witt's style.
Yes yes, I acknowledged that here, but somewhat more snarkily (I see you ignored to quote):
Quoting schopenhauer1
If indeed everything is conflated to ordinary language and "Forms of Life", surely, to be a pedantic question-asker without providing any exposition would be abusive to the community of sympathetic listeners. You are always going to convince me this is the only way, and I am always going to say to you that you deem it more clever and necessary than it is.
Well, more that meaning is irrelevant. It's use that is of interest, and asking for a slab in an Australian pub is for some an effective way of improving one's weekend.
Folk have been at pains to try to get you to understand that language games involve both the world and words. It's not one or the other, but both.
I actually do agree on this because I don't think all uses of words are what we would normally think of in terms of meaning. But I also think the boundary is arbitrary, maybe not in terms of meaning, but in the sense that it still uses the same mechanisms. In other words, there is nothing particularly special or unique about meaning other than another kind of "use" in terms of state transitions, which we just happen to highlight and add special signifcance to. But I don't think there is like some specific clear cut.
Quoting schopenhauer1
If you mean internal as in experiences then I would agree but I dont agree on any kind of "hidden" internal mental stuff, at least thats what im calling it, I hope you get what i am getting at there. We don't need internal understanding, only hebbian learning and neural activity which drives the state transitions, and these cannot be cached out in terms of semantic meaning or understanding because they are just mechanistic physical mechanisms. "Meaning" is just how the word is used in terms of the context in which we say the word or think it. Nothing more is necessary.
Quoting Apustimelogist
:cool: :up: :fire:
But surely there cannot really be a notion of shared meaning based on someones personal pain independently of observable pain-related behaviors. infact it is conditionally independent. the exact nature of the pain is virtually redundant compared to the functional implications.
But my claim here is "think" has to be part of it, otherwise "meaning" loses its meaning, and it is simply a "function" (like in a program). Imagine an unthinking ChatGPT that uses words to retrieve the proper answers to various requests. These are functions of algorithms as no internal (mental) thinking is involved in the understanding of the word.
Shared meaning doesn't need to be based on personal pain, but that a person is "in the beetle-box" understanding "something" about the word pain, needs to be there for at least one member of the language community. Otherwise it's not meaning but function all the way down. Use is not meaning simpliciter
That is Wittgenstein's position! It has been quoted several times including by those who argue as if they disagree with him on this.
He said the box can be empty no? Potentially all those boxes can be empty…leaving just use.
It depends on what we both mean by think. What I meant here was just the internal vocalization of the word which we nonetheless still experience. To me, thinking is just another instance of "use" and state transitions, whether in ongoing vocalizations or those moments where you stop and "think" where in fact its all blank for a second and then suddenly pops another internal vocalization or some form of reaction in accordance to a eureka moment of some sort.. or intensely attending to an equation. To me, these are all the same kind of state transition/ "use" kind of thing.
I found the parts of PI on understanding and reading quite convincing in this regard. For a while, a lot of these kinds of thinking as kind of mysterious mental processes didn't make sense to me, but this kind of enactive / situated approach just makes much more sense to me. I think of Wittgenstein as a the godfather of enactive cognition and that kind of stuff. I have a nice quote actually from important late developmental psychologist Esther Thelen who utilized an enactive dynamic systems approach which is reminiscient of the Wittgenstein view imo:
"Knowing is the process of dynamic assembly across multileveled systems in the service of a task. We do not need to invoke represented constructs such as “object” or “extended in space and time” outside the moment of knowing. Knowing, just like action, is the momentary product of a dynamic system, not a dissociable cause of action" ... "We think to act. Thus, knowing may begin as and always be an inherently sensorimotor act."
Eh, this gets awfully close to the problem of a hidden dualism. The mental quickly gets covered up with behavior or process, trying to hide evidence of the mental. Cause and ontology is different. Perhaps mental came about from some causal reason that is behavioral. Mental interacts with physical. But mental is still in the equation somewhere. Redness might have came about for some X reason, but whatever "redness" is in terms of its qualitative aspect, it is "mental" in some way.
But that's tangential here. You said:
Quoting Apustimelogist
So I am going to be firm here on my stance of meaning versus something else, like function. A program that requests and retrieves data. Is that meaning? It makes requests, the requests are used for various outputs. Are these requests actually "meaning-ful?" or are they simply behavior behaving. Who determines "what" the behavior is? At some point, the terminus ends with someone with a mental state that needs to be in the equation.
There will be those who disagree and think that programs running functions and creating outputs that are then checked and verified by other programs are providing meaning. But now I think meaning is lost altogether, and we are talking about a different phenomenon. We are talking function, error checking, or what not.
I genuinely don't think I know what meaning can mean outside of the context of use. Even my internal experience of pain has meaning only in a functional sense. If pain was just a sensation that did not elicit any kind of responses in me, not even my attention, then it would be meaningless. I wouldnt even be aware of the pain sensation that I was having. Pain is only meaningful to me in how it elicits my reactions, changes in my attention, changes in thoughts, arousal etc. Obviously I am having a distinct sensation and I can identify that but even idenitification only is meaningful in the context of responses I am making internally in the act of identification; changes to thought, attention, whatever. Sensation is necessary but functional responses are equally necessary. Only through them does the sensation mean something.
I am not denying the mental in the sense I am not denying my own experiences. But I side with Wittgenstein and Thelen in saying that I think the evidence for more than that is tenuous and this way seems a better fit with how I view neuroscience.
Reading more, I guess we agree with the mental in terms of experience. But I am saying that I don't think there is more above that and that the meaning embedded in our experiences is still totally functional... transitions in experience... i experience some context and i experience myself saying a word and then some further experiences follow that etc.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Well what do you mean by meaningful here?
You are making much more of this analogy then is warranted.
The use of a word is not something in a box. Meaning is use is public not private.
I think we can agree here. I am not saying we have some a priori definitional understanding per se, just that we need some sort of mental experience for meaning to obtain, period.
Quoting Apustimelogist
That is the main question in this dialogue.. I am trying to say what it isn't at this point, and I am indicating that it isn't just use. Use in context of a mind that can understand the context. Mind needs to actually internalize something for meaning to mean anything other than state of affairs that is a function in the universe.
What is "public"? There is no public. Public is a shared internal understanding of use, which is internal :).
Is that to say language gives the appearance of us sharing a world but we are actually stuck in an isolated theater of the individual mind?
And if that is the case, what is this "sharing" you speak of? It seems a lot more possible as something we can observe ourselves doing than to propose an unknown process designed to make us feel like it is happening.
In a way yeah. There is no "public space". When a "builder" says "slab", the language community of the builder, is "really" the individual understandings of slab that are in some connection with each other. But this connection and these individual understandings are an internal experiential form of knowledge. When the builder who yells "Slab!" gets his concrete block, it is his internal mental sense that the block was expected and confirmed the block was received. The person getting the block had their version of what was expected, etc. There is nothing outside the individual instantiations. The beetle's "use" can never be separated from the actual beetle in the box, in other words. Witt seems to think this can occur. But there is no "space" outside the individual self that this obtains. There is no Platonic thing that is "Public" that "use" is had outside each individual's private knowledge.
Quoting Paine
Not quite sure what you're saying, but it's alluding to what I am saying that there is no Platonic non-experiential "public sphere". It is all internal sensibilities.
And further, if we were to ever say that something akin to "use" can exist without a mental states, that is not meaning, but some sort of function. It's no more meaningful than some process in nature is meaningful.
This gets to other ideas.. pan-semiosis for example.. And actually feeds into the debates we continually have here for mistaking the map for the terrain.
There is no way to confirm this to be the case. There are models of why it seems to happen in the way you describe. It does not introduce a "Platonic thing" to observe that we can observe many things about our use of language without presupposing a model. I can imagine solipsism but doing that does not make it a fact. It cancels itself as something to be verified.
One thing the present discussion of what is "real" versus "ideal" poorly reflects is the extent Wittgenstein challenged the 'theoretical'. He questioned the way we seek universals but did not deliver an alternative model that explains what should happen instead. That would place him in the Behaviorist camp where language is a part of an organic system.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Is this not the kind of theory that Wittgenstein expressed skepticism about?
Not sure, it all kind of muddles together at the end...
He wants to say "use" which is something "definitive" but then say that language keeps us ever in possible "error" of what is meant or conveyed. It seems you can't have both. His own skepticism starts to dilute even something as simple as "use".
To be a mini-Witt:
Use to whom? Surely if you get me a slab, there is nothing beyond me finding it "normal" and you finding it "normal" to do X and X. But it is still just "me" and "you" and nothing beyond that. There is no unifying form of "use". You can't get beyond the skeptical mode that he starts himself. Saying it's "public" or it's "practice" doesn't get beyond this either.. He is stuck with the mental and private...
I think this is a similar misunderstanding that @RussellA had (above) between "private" (as Witt uses it) and "personal". I take it you want to record the fact that it is me that is saying my take, my "understanding" (not determined, as it were, by something outside me); that I can say: "This is my understanding". But this is just one “use” of understanding.
“Use" is a made-up technical term for Wittgenstein; it is not any sense of the ordinary word. There couldn't be a more misunderstood term that Wittgenstein created than this one word (maybe “language games” or “forms of life”). This is not "use" as in: to operate, as if I "use" words; nor is it what I make come about, as if uses are up to me. Uses are an expression or activity’s "possibilities" (#90)—what it is capable of (and not). The purpose of Wittgenstein’s term “use” is not to explain anything, it is part of showing that even the same expressions and activities can have different implications, different criteria, different ways it works, which is to contrast with the skeptic’s desire to have things work one way, be judged to have met one criteria.
The use depends on the context. I can “know” New York, which is the sense (use) that I know my way about. I can “know” your phone number, the criteria for which is my getting it right. I can “know” that you are angry, which is the use that I acknowledge it, recognize and accept it, grant that it should be taken into consideration or not. These are the criteria for judging in these instances, the “uses” of knowledge—how knowledge works (not the word).
So, with “understanding” there are various senses (uses, or versions is another way to think about it), which just means there are different criteria and workings then just the sense of "my understanding"; that "understanding" stands for different aspects of our lives at times. Consider your "understanding” me. I say something (or just run you through a process), and then I ask: "Do you understand?" and you say “yes”. But here, with this use of (version of, sense of) understanding, what you say is to extrapolate the implications of what I said or just to paraphrase it back to me. Now my judgment can disagree with your extrapolation, or miss something about your paraphrase, or balk at your prejudicial characterization, etc., but then it is just a matter of my responsibility to continue to explain and yours to try again, which, as we know, can go to ___ or all come to naught. The point being that your "understanding what I have said" has different mechanics than "your understanding" (your assessment); understanding in this use is a measurement of which I am the judge.
Quoting schopenhauer1
But with some uses of “understand”, there is no “my” understanding, there is no room for it. “If you leave this base you will be courtmartialed. Got it?” “I understand [Yes, Sir!]” and here the criteria (of judgment) is that there will be consequences, whether you understand or even accept them. In fact, most times, when I say something to you in a particular context, there is no question about “your understanding”. It just doesn’t come up because there is nothing to interpret (as intention only comes up when something is weird).
Quoting schopenhauer1
I would offer that “…within a person’s internal mental space” in this context, is the same as: “I judge”. Now, in what situation do I (Witt will ask: what do I say when) I judge “whether a word is used correctly”? Don’t we just say something like “I don’t think that means what you think it means.” Now, yes, I am the one that is doing the judging, sure. But the criteria, the standard used to judge (the routes along which we measure) depends not only on the word, but the situation, and thus the version (use) of that word in that situation (part of that situation may be what sentence it is in, who you say it to, etc.); the criteria may not even be correctness (e.g., appropriateness, cleverness). And yes, I apply those criteria in judging. But I can be wrong, out of line, pedantic, etc.; one implication that it is “me” judging means it reflects on me and my judgment as well as whether the expression is “correct”.
He calls what he is destroying a “house of cards” (#118), leaving behind what is important, which is that the ordinary criteria embodied in what we say in a situation make our language just as accurate, precise, capable of rigor, and able to communicate as “philosophy’s” abstract, universal, complete substitutions. The possibility of error does not make ordinary criteria inaccurate; our ordinary means of judgment show how errors between us can be reconciled (how to fix it). The pure logic Witt is worried about is built in an attempt to never err, to preempt misunderstanding entirely.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Wittgenstein’s method is Ordinary Language Philosophy! He is looking at what we say in situations to learn what matters to us about something, as shown in the criteria we judge it by. This is his philosophical data to learn about the issues of knowledge, thinking, understanding, intention, appearance, essence, etc., and, predominantly in the PI, why we want to run away from the fact that our criteria are based on our interest in them, to an abstract, “pure” place where we are removed from the calculation of precision. If you really want to get into OLP’s method, this is the thread. Heaven help us though.
Well I tire of your denigrating something just because you don’t understand it; frankly, it reflects more on you than Wittgenstein. Why are you here when you don’t care about it? It doesn’t seem like I can teach you anything.
Forgot to tag you all on my Discussion of Witt’s term “Use” above, if anyone still thinks we are getting anywhere (or can).
Internal understanding counts to the extent that it can be demonstrated externally. We say that a person understands something to the extent that they are able to demonstrate their understanding. In fact, the external demonstration is all that we usually (non-philosophically) mean by "understanding". Whatever internal understanding there is "left over" that cannot be demonstrated, or that is not included in an external demonstration of understanding, is irrelevant to the meaning of "understanding". Like Wittgenstein's beetle, the internal aspect of understanding itself "drops out of consideration as irrelevant" to the meaning of the word "understanding". This is not to say that we don't have an internal understanding or an internal life or any feelings or thoughts or first-person perspective. Only that these private "inner" things do not determine the public meanings of our words.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Our finding it "normal" or customary to "do X" is the unifying form of "use". The way "slab" is used in the builder's language game is that one person calls out "slab!" and another person brings them a slab. The same applies to all words, that is, we are trained in their use; we master the (techniques of) language. Whether or not we understand the language is demonstrated by our actions, which may be appropriate/natural or which may demonstrate that we don't understand what was said or that we don't speak the language.
Even the builder has different language games.
Quoting Fooloso4
True.
Quoting Fooloso4
You haven't visited the UK.
Quoting Fooloso4
Certainly not from one example of running, but numerous example of running, all of which have some family resemblance.
This is the reality of life.
We both accept that there is a "world" in the Investigations, but you're refusing to give your opinion as to where this "world" of Wittgenstein exists.
For the Indirect Realist, it exists only within language and thought, not outside.
For the Direct Realist, the world exists outside of language and thought and is perceived immediately and directly within language and thought.
My understanding is that the Investigations does not give an opinion. There is nothing wrong with this, but it does affect how people read the Investigations.
Do you want my opinion or Wittgenstein's?
In those simple terms, I think the better approach is direct realism, after Austin - Many of the words we use refer directly to things in the world. It's a very misunderstood topic. I don't think your characterisation here at all accurate. As for "you're refusing to give your opinion" - I've provided pages and pages of explanation, over many, many years.
But Wittgenstein - the better interpretation is that he shows the realist/idealist division is flawed. That's why anscombe's paper is so careful. But you can find people that put him in either camp.
Idealism is pretty well irrelevant. Wittgenstein to a large extent set up the discussion of realism/antirealism in the nineties and noughties.
My point was that Wittgenstein's view on meaning is that, when you make meaningful use of language in your social environment, the language is meaningful.
Not the other way around. Your interpretations of Wittgenstein and PI seem to keep claiming that you must first learn the meanings of words by pointing at the objects in the world. I didn't agree with that.
Therefore your previous statement and question in the post, that if the barmaid doesn't know what X is, "X me beer." wouldn't make the maid bring the beer to you, was absurd.
This whole statement is not meaningful because no pub owner would hire a person who doesn't understand the meaning of the word "Bring"as a barmaid for his pub. You made a senseless statement using an impossible scenario in your and my social world.
Before reading Wittgenstein, I would never have known this type of fallacy. Since reading him, I seem to be able to spot the fallacies like this in daily conversations and posts in the forums. I find Wittgenstein's philosophy and methodology practical and useful. :D
No. The builder has one language game. The one described by Wittgenstein. It is, as he said, a complete primitive language. (2)
Well, I wasn't agreeing that experience is required, just that we agree on the mental being experiences.
Before I said that there isn't really anything special about meaning or understanding since it is about "use" and "meaning" is just a specific case of "use" that we have singled out; for instance, saying "the word fish is spelled f-i-s-h" is arguably a use of the word fish which isn't really connected to what we would call the meaning of the word fish. But then the dividing line imo is blurry, constructed, weak. Meaning isn't special, and insofar that it is functional I don't see a reason why experience is required for those things.
When I interact with people, I don't need to know if they have experience or not to attribute to them understanding and things like meaning. Experience is redundant here, since a person with a functioning brain but hypothetically no experience (i.e. zombie, and i am not saying that this is necessarily possible) would behave in exactly the same way. The properties of their understanding comes from the functional neuronal interactions.
I think ultimately this is a difficult issue where someone like myself would more or less end up having to commit to the additional idea that a putative zombie should be attributed as having experiences / it is impossible for them not to have experiences / they are the same as us. But at face value, just by thinking about my characterization of what meaning and understanding is, experience does not seem necessary, purely because the hypothetical absence of experience has no effect.
Again though, I don't think there is anything special about meaning or understanding beyond "use". In this way, the difference in meaning and understanding between, say, me and one of those large language models is not some special, qualitative difference but rather just the extent of the functional capabilities. Im sure some A.I have better functional capabilities in some areas than us (e.g. how you can train A.I. to be exceptionally good at chess or go), but none of them have the functional capacities for the kinds of capabilities we think of as having true understanding of certain things, certainly not sentience. Obviously though this is a kind of continuous scale and as they get better, the divide between what we might call understanding and non-understanding becomes blurred, which is probably why there have been discussions recently about whether large language models have understanding - they are just getting better and better.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Again, I think this is a bit tenuous if the internal drivers of public behavior are redundant. People can have different internal experiences driving the same public behaviour, which they have obviously partly learned publically.
I think there is different layers to "use" - there is the internal state transitions of experiences accessible to me where there is the meaning of pain to me in terms of how my internal experience of how pain experience relates to my own experiences of other behaviors, contexts, consequences, and is meaningless without them. That might include my personal meaning of the word pain. These have external consequences which are perceived through other persons experiences.
Because the word "pain" is learned and used socially and I cannot experience other people's experiences of pain; they could plausibly be different while generating the same behaviors which I perceive in other people and react to - I might even describe my pain to someone and they imagine it differently because of the unique nature of their own experiences (i guess their conceptualizations and assumptions that they learned aocially may even be different if they learn in a slightly different social context to me, though with some overlap).
The observable aspects then contain the bulk of the meaning in the public sphere and how we as communities or societies use this concept of pain. If its possible people have different experiences of pain then how can the word pain be pointing out or singling out some specific pain experience? Even in a single person this might be fuzzier than it seems since I am sure that different pain experiences induce similar reactions in particular contexts and perhaps similar pain experiences may induce different reactions depending on the context. I don't know if there is a one-to-one mapping between particular contexts and pain experiences; and at some point, there must be some generalization involved since we don't differentiate every slightly different pain experience.
I only really see your conceptualization here being tenable in a very sollipsistic way because everyone might have their own different personal meaning. I don't think thats necessarily wrong but maybe describing everything in such a sollipsistic manner seems a bit stunted.
Quoting Paine
I think behaviorist is quite a bad term imo. What causes behavior? Neurobiology. What are its consequences? On other parts of the physical world. Really, behaviorism is just physicsalism or natural-sciencesism, since an account if behavior and what it is doing is just woefully incomplete without the rest.
My point being is that anyone who is a behaviorist should be incorporating more into their analysis to make it complete (while still consistent with their attitude). If they do thid then they become no different from anyone who advocates for the utility of the natural sciences in explaining the world. Its certainly much easier to do this now when we know much more about neuroscience and related fieldd compared to the early twentieth century.
Right, but see Witt can't get beyond his own dissolving acid. My premise is that WItt's PI has two points, one of which negates the other:
Point I: People's interpretation/understanding/sense of meaning can always be in trouble of being misinterpreted, of being in error. Of being mistaken.
Point II: If 1 is the case, then the best we can get is how the word is "used". But this too (as even you imply here) becomes subject for the dissolving acid. As, just like any other overriding theory of meaning (however deflated you want it to be for Witt vs a grandiose theory of certainty or whatnot), is still not going to get beyond being one's mere solipsistic (private) interpretation of meaning. Use should not even have been offered as a solution. His positive claim has already been wiped away by his negative claim. Use doesn't get a special pass either. The beetle-box does not explain away this phenomenon.
In other words, you can't have it both ways. If every other concept of an overriding theory of meaning gets dissolved, so does "use". You can't go back and say, "But doesn't it seem like use is the all there is?" Of course I can say, no it doesn't. Or perhaps I can say, "sure", but you could have said any concept there perhaps... Since there is no certainty, there is no default (such as "I guess it's just use then!!").
Quoting Antony Nickles
Two arguments going on here, so parsing it out:
1) There needs to be an internal aspect for meaning to obtain. If there is no mental aspect, meaning is not meaning. Meaning is something else (a function perhaps, like a program running). Meaning has to somehow have a point of view. Even knee-jerk commands and actions from those commands are had from a point of view.. a "feels like". If it doesn't "feel like" something, then it is not meaning-ful. Even if at some point there was an complete lack of mental-state during some speech-act, as long as later on, someone can look back at it, it has become meaning-ful. If that person lacked a mental state in perpetuity, then meaning was not had for that person. He basically behaved like a computer, he performed a function, he did not garner any "meaning". Actually, I am not even going to let myself get away with "function", because function mplies someone with ability for meaning, has programmed it. I am just going to say, "a state of affairs happened in the universe". I'll give myself enough charity there, but even then...
Ok that is issue 1 (really that was the issue you quoted there). However, I am also saying...
2) Possibly a more important point as to Witt's project... I see people throwing around the words "public" and "practice". But this is dangerously close to becoming Platonic. That is to say, it is proposing (inadvertently perhaps, or even covertly) an existence of something "public". There is no "public" though. There is no respite from the dissolving acid of personal meaning/perception of something. You can't get an escape hatch and say, "Ah, well it's okay, because we now have a public/communal/external/non-private meaning". No, if Witt's Point I is correct (as he constantly tries to demonstrate), then this too fails as a point of meaning. It is simply people acting upon their own perceptions. People can say, "You have heard me correctly. You have done the command I expected.etc", but that doesn't confer a certainty, any more than anything else. Use becomes use-less, because it's a vicious circle. The builder who is expecting the slab, might be pleased, my confirm, might have had expectations met or not met, but that is the builder and only the builder. It is his beetle. The other builder picks up the slab and gives it to the foreman calling out "Slab!". That is in turn "his beetle". What there isn't is "public use" of beetle whereby the boxes drop out, and "just use" becomes some overriding theory.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Yes, but as I understand it, it was the next generation (like J.L. Austin) that really started that. It represents a positive (systemetized/construction) aspect of ordinary language. But how this itself doesn't then get dissolved by the critical parts, I am not sure.. Now you start having "overriding theories" of language, which starts to look like "ole philosophy" again with its need for certainty. Certain about its ordinary qualities.. but there is a "there" there.
Quoting Luke
And this is what I am trying to convey to @Antony Nickles, in my Point 2 above, there is no "external". That becomes each individual's "beetle" determining "what is public use".. Turtles all the way down, baby!
Use to whom? Surely if you get me a slab, there is nothing beyond me finding it "normal" and you finding it "normal" to do X and X. But it is still just "me" and "you" and nothing beyond that. There is no unifying form of "use".
— schopenhauer1
All of these things are said as if there is a Platonic "public" judging this.. It is just people's internal "beetles" judging this.
I mean this just goes back to the "map vs. terrain" debates that are perennial on this forum. A computer with the most advanced algorithms and computations, and even "error checking" mechanisms that are a kind of "self-check", gets nowhere closer to that thing having "meaning" (to itself), because nothing internal made it "meaning-ful". It is just a state of affairs happening. Functions (even ones where intended actions are to be performed and completed), are not meaningful. They are layers and layers of behavior behaving.
Very true. :up:
Thanks for that. That's what I thought, in that the Investigations takes neither side in the realism/anti realism debate.
Quoting schopenhauer1
But a brain is just a type of computer working using algorithms in a way that is not qualitatively different to what goes on in machine learning.
I don't even know what "nothing internal made it "meaning-ful"" means when if these machine learning models had the architecture and inputs of a human brain, then they would trivially be capable of doing everything a human brain like you and I could do. They could have this conversation right now like we are about their own concepts of meaning and understanding.
I brought up behaviorism as an example of a kind of theory making that Wittgenstein is not doing. The skepticism applied to the use of universals is not to reduce them to a set of inputs which are sufficient for establishing causes.
Neither is W making an argument against behaviorism that Chomsky, for example, puts forth in his models.
There is a ventriloquism underway in the insistence that a model must be the goal of the enterprise. If only a 'family resemblance' can be discovered amongst different games, the arbitrary nature of chess can be contrasted with how language-games work within certain constraints. To insist that there must be a way they are equally arbitrary is to insist upon the universal set aside at the beginning.
Well, yes, communication can always end up frustrated. But this is not "a point" Wittgenstein is making; it's just the nature of communication, as well as a moral situation, etc. There is no fact or foundation ensuring these practices. But they go wrong in different ways. Apart from someone being "right" in a discussion, I might just give up because the other refuses to concede anything, not even acknowledge points of agreement. ;) That is to say, error is not the only measure, nor is mistake, but yes, things can go sideways, of course. I would think that the fact that things go badly is not a matter of contention.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Saying the "best we can get" implies that our ordinary criteria are not sufficient, that they don't work in different but acceptable ways. The standard you are judging that we have not met ("this is as good as we can do compared to...") is a single standard (rather than varied) that Wittgenstein is pointing out is manufactured for a particular reason in the face of the fact of that our world fails, is not resolvable (as discussed above).
Quoting schopenhauer1
Again, you misunderstand that "use" is not a solution to the problem of, let's call it, our human condition (its possibility of failure), it is not an answer to this truth the skeptic records (nor is it a dismissal, or a cure). It is just a term to point out that an expression can have different importance to our culture (thus different criteria) based on the situation.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Maybe we can see that the reason you are digging your heels in here about an "internal aspect" is to record that I have a personal relation to our shared criteria; I can defy our shared expectations, extend them into a new context, court madness, call for revolution, etc. That I matter (me personally, individually). The takeaway of the variety of our ordinary criteria, even that they have different implications (uses, versions) in different situations, is the realization that society’s shared judgments and interests (what has been meaningful in our culture, our lives) are captured and embodied in our ordinary criteria. Usually there is no reason for a conflict with ordinary criteria to come up (there is no need** for "me"), but, as one example, when communication falls apart, it turns on how much these shared criteria matter to me, whether I am willing to be responsible for them, to them--that they do or don't speak for me; whether they are meaningful to me.
**That your picture of "meaning" "needs to be" always present (even when "knee-jerk") is the interlocutor's need, their insistence, which Wittgenstein is investigating.
Quoting schopenhauer1
The fact that I am responsible for what I say does not require that at every moment I "mean" what I do or say (or "intend" it), as if I always "cause" it, or even that there was anything about it that was personal or individual. Things usually go smoothly; most times no one has to clarify, or dispute, or ask "What?". However, when something strange happens, or we defy those expectations, then our culture’s criteria and the assumed uses of our shared activities (e.g., imploring, apologizing, threatening, etc.) are how we judge what you said, and judge you, at which point you can: clear up the "intention" (from their confused inference), or apologize, or make excuses, or clarify (from how they took it; or under which criteria it should be taken, thus how its meaningfulness should be considered, under which "use"). If we look at responsibility as the duty to respond (be judged) for what we say based on the ordinary criteria of a situation, then the event of my saying it (part of why "expression" is important) simply creates a context of public criteria and the circumstances in which clearing things up is possible (but not guaranteed, assured, certain).
Quoting schopenhauer1
Yes, but this is not a matter of a certain picture ("public", "private"), but of your personal responsibility to be intelligible to me, to put what you expressed within or against our culture’s ordinary criteria. The duty is not a lack of transmission of something within you, it is your responsiveness (you responding) to a confusion in a particular situation. "What did you mean?" is asked because you said something I didn't expect, which is resolved between the situational implications and expectations, not by you looking farther into yourself for a "personal meaning", but that expressions records the fact that you can defy or stretch those criteria.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Moore and Austin were doing their thing at roughly the same time as Wittgenstein (Moore published Defense of Common Sense in 1925; the Investigations were published in 1953; Austin published How To Do Things With Words in 1955). Austin and Wittgenstein did not know of each other's work. Wittgenstein clarified Moore's version of OLP by seeing that it is not a matter that "common sense" or the common person's understanding is a better explanation of philosophical issues. He also sees that skepticism (the temptation of it) is an ongoing part of the human condition, where Austin didn't take it seriously.
Oh this is like philosophical gaslighting. Most of PI is devoted to ambiguities, misunderstandings, and errors :lol:. It certainly matters to him to demonstrate this as a point, not as an aside.
Quoting Antony Nickles
There you are again, sneaking in some externality. "Culture" is now used instead of "public" and "practice". Culture is an individual's perception of something. For all I know, what you read from me, is monkey gibberish but accords with your sensibilities somehow and you read it as English. Whatever it is, you can't say that your criteria is from "culture" because that too falls out and is dissolved away... It's only your understanding of culture. And if you want to rant and rave about it and say "rubbish" with incredulity.. go take it up with your prophet-philosopher. You can't get gold by squeezing coal long enough. You can't get to a foundation by appealing to a public sphere of agreement. It is all individuals agreeing, there is no public.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Ok, but the whole "shared criteria" is not a thing. You can't dissolve and then say, "oh no but, ya know, ordinary stuff doesn't dissolve, that is meaning. Just keep the individual meaning part. Again, this isn't my theory. I am just holding Witt to his own standards.
Quoting Antony Nickles
I'd bring in ideas of broken tools, but then we are getting into continental philosophy...
But you (Witt) can't hide behind the fact that many times we have no problems and everything goes smoothly. As long as that means nothing about anything we are good. In other words, that can't indicate a grander theory because that would be intimating some sort of path to a "certainty", something that cannot be known.
Quoting Antony Nickles
Responsibility for what? What is it an appeal to? We can always be wrong... Common Sense needs to be explained, but it ain't, Blanche! Schopenhauer had a theory of compassion being the basis for ethics.. But that would be a type of "certainty" cause it's a theory foundational. Witt cannot rely on that, now. He's all alone in Solipsistic land. Your attempts are in vain... Appealing to WHAT responsibility? To WHOM? Now you are getting an ought from an is.. a terrible thing for a Witty.. You can't claim no certainty and then appeal to incredulity/common sense and especially not responsibility! Sorry, you claimed uncertainty... you cannot now posit positive statements (we MUST be responsible to understand each other). That would be a foundation!!
Quoting Antony Nickles
Sounds like the main point I had right though.. Witt's own dissolving acid can't be resolved by other OLD systems that are more "constructive" or "foundationalist".
Edit;: Oh and you can't appeal to some reified "public" who will make you an outcast pariah, and "that" becomes the de facto foundation. That is still solipsistic self feeling the affects of whatever is affecting him/her. In other words, I don't dispute the affects (someone is indeed affected by a decision), just that those affects are derived from some ontological entity called "the public". Beetles all the way down, there is no external Platonic thing of "use" even "use in context of a community" or "community". Again, not my ideas, just taking Witt where Point I takes it, despite his assertion of Point II which is negated by Point I.
TL;DR: A full on skeptic can't make the magic move to any appeals to community, common sense, and especially responsibility.
Well, that debate occurred long after it was written, so that's to be expected. Trying to understand him in those terms is putting the cart before the horse.
Rather, he dissolves the divergence between idealism and realism. See §402.
Worthy of actually being quoted:
I have questioned a lot of your interpretations regarding these topics but I have to agree with this observation.
I have been traveling for the last few weeks, and while I read your comments, other things stole my attention. IS there something in particular we might re-visit?
That is a generous invitation.
I will think about it.
That logic makes no sense. Someone else’s beetle may think they understand what I’m doing, find it “normal” or not, but it’s just their beetle reacting to something. That doesn’t confer anything outside of solipsism. How is there a public to Witt if there’s no certainty to ontology? It’s all anti foundational. You can’t start positing an external confirming entity.
So there are no rules? No rules of chess or any other game/sport? No road rules?
Im saying you can’t have both uncertainty, anti foundationalism but then claim that there’s X (rules, games, use)
I don’t follow why there needs to be either foundationalism or certainty in order for there to be rules.
I was saying it was not a "point" because it is already assumed (no need to make a point of it, we all agree). He is not "demonstrating" it; he is looking at when it happens to see the ordinary criteria are different for each thing, that they come into play as markers of our interests in that practice.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Well I'm just trying to find a word that you don't get all twisted up about. Culture, public, practice, shared lives, are in the sense here the way we have been interested in and judged things as a community, as a people (human, English speakers, etc.). Anytime I (or Wittgenstein) have used "our" is not in the sense of the possessive of "mine"; "our criteria" is not each of our individual criteria (as if you have yours and I have mine). We share criteria as we share our lives together. This is not some "agreement" (in the past or in each instance), but just that we can all recognize what an apology looks like, what a joke is, etc. We share the same ways of checking off the list if necessary of what makes a mistake different from an accident because we have all been brought up into our... whatever you want to call it, society?
Quoting schopenhauer1
Wittgenstein is not looking for a foundation; he finds none. The ordinary criteria for something don't ensure things won't go sideways, but when they get wonky they do so along (or against) the judgments we would all (usually) make about a practice (and are resolved mostly the same way); this does not ensure everything works out, but it doesn't "dissolve away".
Quoting schopenhauer1
Responsible to make yourself intelligible to me about the confusion; whether along the appropriate expectations and judgments (though this is not "common sense"), or to explain transgressing those, or explaining how and why you are stretching our criteria for an act into a new context, and all the other ways things do or might go array. The point is there are times when we can't go on together, where everything breaks down, but there is nothing stopping us from continuing to try to work it out.
You are right, there is no MUST here. But then the only thing getting in the way is you (or me), and not because the thing I get doesn't match the thing you have, but that we refuse, give up, resort to violence, etc. Wittgenstein finds that insisting on having something inside me is to remove "me" (what I do next) as the most important part; it is the desire to have knowledge take our place. This is why "I cannot know what is going on in him" (p. 225) is a choice when I see someone writhing in pain (a "conviction" he says). Their feelings are not "hidden" (as you say, "internal"), I am refusing to accept them, to see them as a person.
And also, as I said above, our criteria can in a particular case, not matter to me, become a burden, oppressive, exclude me, be dead to degenerate times, etc. I either continue to carry the interest in our criteria or not, but for that I can be judged (this is why I am culpable in the social contract I never agreed to).
Because it posits a public entity
@Banno @Paine If you start anything, tag me in; I'd rather play in that sandpit than have to keep saying things like this.
It has nothing to do with beetles. As long as you insist of inserting this analogy where it does not belong you will continue to be confused.
We follow the rules of arithmetic when our calculations yield the correct answer. We follow the rules of chess when we do not make illegal moves. Whatever might be going on in one's mind makes no difference as long as one does not go against the rules.
There is no uncertainty here. If you add 1+1 and get 7 you went against the rules. If you make a prohibited move in chess, we don't check to see if there is a beetle in the box, we consult the rule book. There is a reason why disputes do not arise as to whether a bishop moves diagonally.
Quoting schopenhauer1
You can play solitaire but the game has rules that are not solipsistic. You can make up your own rules but then you are playing a different game. If only you know the rules of the game then how can you be sure you are following them?
Quoting schopenhauer1
There is no certainty to ontology and it is not done according to rules.
So, what about this paragraph? It does not fit into your 'reduction of skepticism' model:
420. But can't I imagine that the people around me are automata, lack consciousness, even though they behave in the same way as usual?—If I imagine it now—alone in my room—I see people with fixed looks (as in a trance) going about their business—the idea is perhaps a little uncanny. But just try to keep hold of this idea in the midst of your ordinary intercourse with others, in the street, say! Say to yourself, for example: "The children over there are mere automata; all their liveliness is mere automatism." And you will either find these words becoming quite meaningless; or you will produce in yourself some kind of uncanny feeling, or something of the sort. Seeing a living human being as an automaton is analogous to seeing one figure as a limiting case or variant of another; the cross-pieces of a window as a swastika, for example.
Agreed; but just "Inv. Part 2?" or... ?
@Sam26?
As long as we avoid private language and rule following I'm okay. #319 thinking; #344 imagination; #416 consciousness; #437 expectation; #472 belief; #499 senseless; #425 understanding; #547 negation and identity; #572 states "of mind"; #611 willing; #641 intention; #661 meaning; and then Part 2
This is like saying when studying mathematics, I'm okay with the subject as long as we avoid multiplication and division. You can't be serious.
For now I'm just going to work on the other thread.
Yeah, you will. :wink:
Quoting Paine
Well there is a lot going on in this quote, and I don't know what you are referring to by my "reduction of skepticism" other than I might say that the skeptic records a fact about our life but does not take into account that knowledge is not our only response to the separation, the limitation of us.
He starts with the observation that seeing someone as an automaton is antithetical to our naturalness (#418); we just are humans ("consciousness" does not record anything--any fact--more than that). But the unnaturalness of the skeptic's doubt does not mean it is not valid (records a fear, a fact). Not seeing someone as a person is as little a thing as only treating their pain (as the skeptic only wants to "know" their pain). Our desire for knowledge is "a limiting case" for it obscures our ability to judge, to see, that they are a person. The skeptic imagines the other's body blocks us from knowing their pain, but it is our unwillingness (to accept anything but pure knowledge) that shields their humanity from us; he will also says that someone having a soul is a function of my being in a position (an "attitude"), a relation, to the other, e.g., treating them as if they have one p. 178. Witt will later talk about this as "seeing an aspect".
I don't find those sections to be essential as they are only two examples among many others that attempt to find out why the response to skepticism has been presumed to be just better ("pure") knowledge. And I think those sections screw people up or are more divisive than helpful.
Quoting Sam26
This is a disappointment to me as I'm sure it is to @Banno. I might just fix my resolve to take another crack at On Certainty.
I don't understand this quest for "pure knowledge" angle. What I took from the passage is that means of discrimination have consequences far beyond the subjects they entertain.
I'll go with that. Is our imagining others as dead inside the same means as discrimination? And are the consequences for me, that I feel "uncanny"?
I equate trying to doubt that we are all human with the "uncanny" feeling of being lost as to what to do (a moral quandary without any morals), unable to resolve what you mean with what I mean, or learning I was wrong when I thought I was right, which creates the generalized doubt the skeptic has. If I can tie that in to your question about the "quest for pure knowledge"; Wittgenstein takes our response to this doubt to be a fear that we can't be sure about anything. Descartes actually thought himself a madman, or underwater with no bottom. And, because our ordinary means and methods of judging do have the possibility of failing us, we chuck those criteria and any particular situation, and we fixate on wanting something abstract, universal, predetermined, foundational, certain, as if mathematical, bulletproof. However, the more we want to be certain, the less stuff that actually meets that requirement (just math), which leads us back to our ordinary--if falliable--means of judgment. Thus we can't "keep hold of this idea"--we can't see the pure requirement and our ordinary criteria at the same time. Both Descartes and Hume found it was an effort to combat the skeptic for long. "But this task [trying to be certain, without a doubt about everything] is a laborious one, and insensibly a certain lassitude leads me into the course of my ordinary life." 1st Meditations
I was thinking that Wittgenstein, as a survivor of the calamity of Nazi Germany, was proposing a measure of fragility not commonly observed. A way of thinking about what one could reasonably expect that was not all that it seemed.
You can call it Wittgenstein Circle Jerks - The Continuation.
This strikes me as a precursor to the notion of "hinge" propositions; here, being a chief hinges on being conscious...
And again in §421, '...does it worry you if I say: “These three struts give the building stability?”'; but then continuing on towards §426, the picture becomes problematic, preventing our seeing what is actually happening.
Another way of saying it...language ambiguity/many meanings/can't be sure........
Quoting Antony Nickles
But he is against trying to figure out a foundation... Yet here we are at society.. which btw, how can that be discussed as an entity unto itself? Society is each person's experience of said "society" (whatever "entity" that is outside of ideas in individual minds). Meaning breaks down, certainty is not had, but somehow society and use remain.. Almost as if a "foundation" for meaning.. Uh oh....
Quoting Antony Nickles
I've addressed all this about responsibility etc. I'm not sure you are getting at what I am saying, perhaps, which is fine as a breakdown on communication is appropriate on a PI thread.
I also think Wittgenstein’s experience may have informed his focus, based on stuff like #426. Our “muddied” ordinary practices cause some to want to “fix the sense un- ambiguously. …[as if] designed for a god, who knows what we cannot know; …sees into human consciousness. In the actual use of expressions we make detours, we go by side-roads. We see the straight highway before us, but of course we cannot use it, because it is permanently closed.” (Emphasis added)
And I always thought this was insightful but naive. It is not that we “cannot” force the easy answer, it is just unethical not to take the “detours” to examine the actual circumstances, draw out the criteria we ordinarily use. If we cannot tolerate our failings, and claim all authority—as if our first impression is correct, that everything can be generalized together, and that we need to assert a standard for what is judged to “fix the sense unambiguously”—this is a facist methodology, the arrogant belief that we are a god, that there is always a “me” intending things, dictating meaning, “fixing” it.
Quoting Paine
I can only try to paraphrase speculatively: So discrimination—analogous to seeing people as robots, seeing them as not human, soulless—affects more than the discriminated?; so we should be careful, or humble?, with our expectations? (say, of what knowledge can tell us about others) but this will come off as, weak? As if giving in to skeptical doubt about others?
Because what posits a public entity? What "public entity"? I don't see the problem.
Witt's theory. The beetle box deigns that you can ignore individual representations of meaning as "functionally" it's all "use". Well, that poses problems due tot he "public" nature of the "functionality of use". That requires a metaphysics of entities such as "public" that goes beyond the individual. It requires a foundation of metaphysics. One cannot deny the need or "use" of metaphysics and then posit an implicit metaphysics. Something has to obtain in the world called "public". Either that, or Witt is thoroughly a solipsist, which fine, in that case, you cannot ignore each individual's representation, as those are all that matters. The beetle counts in that case.
It's not a metaphysics of entities. What is public does go beyond the individual. That's what "public" means (as an adjective), or is at least its one of its meanings; one of the ways it can be used..
Quoting schopenhauer1
When you said there was a "public nature of the functionality of use", you used "public" as an adjective to describe the nature of the functionality of use. But in your next sentence you reify this adjective into an entity where this public nature requires a "metaphysics of entities such as "public"". You haven't really explained why such an entity is required.
I think that, because you assume there can be nothing but private representations, your complaint is that there must be for Wittgenstein some public representation (or public mind) that is the arbiter of all rules and games and language. And who does that public representation belong to? The short answer to your conundrum is: it belongs to the public. That is, to other people, to accepted authorities, to rule books and other references, to convention, to general agreement; to things that are necessarily outside of one person but not necessarily outside of all people.
You haven't sufficiently provided what this public is. Those things you described can simply be representations in individual minds. Where does the beetle box drop out to the "public representation"? It is someone's reaction, and your reaction to their reaction, etc. There is an epiphenomenal or transcendent aspect to this "public" that is implied, that would be perplexing in this non-foundational philosophy. There has to be a theory of what this public is, or it drops back to solipsistic (people's individual representations of meaning).
This and the text thereabouts lead me to suppose that the picture theory of meaning is itself being rejected here. More generally, we might ask "what is the relation between a proposition and a state of affairs?" In the Tractatus, the picture stood between the state of affairs and the proposition. Kenny has it that "In the Investigations the relation between the proposition and the state of affairs is made by the language game". I'm suggesting that the state of affairs is itself made, or perhaps, presupposed, by the language game; that it is fundamental that things are considered to be so-and-so in order that the game occur. Hence
As I said: other people. Other people such as the parents and teachers and others who taught you many of the rules and the games and the language. If you think that other people are no more than representations, and that you were born with an innate knowledge of all the rules and games and language, and that children don't learn rules and games and language, and that you are actually speaking only to a representation of me (and others) in your private language, and all of this because there are no things or people outside yourself but only your representations of them, then I can't help you with your solipsism.
Solipsism is not possible without a private language, and Wittgenstein showed that the concept of a
private language is incoherent.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Wittgenstein uses the term "public" only once in the PI and that is in the preface. Besides, why does there need to be a theory instead of the common meaning of the word?
It’s not my view it’s what Witts anti foundationalism points to. That is to say he wants the inner representation to be always hidden and private yet have “room” for public. Public is always individual confirmations of what are the rules and cultural ideas. So how is it he is getting out of any private version of representation? What is this public he refers to? Individuals may still just think they are confirming some thing, but one can still be a skeptic about all of it. You can’t just say common sense or refer to the other person because that can just be an individuals representation. The beetle is still in the box.
Just a meta question completely separate than my critique. Do you feel Wittgenstein can be wrong or everything he said is airtight? I mean this in both his content and in the weird “oh well the way he wrote there is no wrong even” or some such claim.
I’m asking without you making it personal or making a snide remark about me as a retort.
Individual confirmations of what are the rules and cultural ideas are not hidden and private; they are expressed publicly. One's public expression can be demonstrated to be inconsistent with the accepted practice that is called "following the rule".
Quoting schopenhauer1
Although there may occasionally be borderline cases where it is unclear whether a rule has been broken or not, there are the more common, obvious cases where it either has or it hasn't. If there weren't such obvious cases, then we wouldn't be able to learn or to teach any rules or games or language and we wouldn't have them.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Yes, Wittgenstein can be wrong. Like anyone, he was not infallible.
But how is this internalized? Publicly ? :chin: How odd. How do you know what’s internalized is what’s being conveyed? Who has these rules? Who doesn’t? Who decides? Is it hom or her or him or you or that guy or that person or that …
Social facts!!!!!!!!!
Searle!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It doesn't matter how it is "internalized". That is irrelevant to following the rule.
Quoting schopenhauer1
What?
Quoting schopenhauer1
I don't. What's internalized (or internal) is the beetle, which drops out of consideration as irrelevant. All that matters to following a rule is "what's being conveyed" or one's words and actions.
Who decides? :chin:
Huh who decides?
Typooooo
To begin with, those who teach you the rules, the game or the language "decide" - that is, show you what the practice is or how to play. Later, other players/speakers may also correct you or remind you of the rules. Or you might correct or remind them. Maybe a referee or a rule book or an authority will decide. Some may be incapable of learning the game/language. Some might not want to play along.
Quoting schopenhauer1
Nobody decides this. We are unable to verify anyone else's private, internal beetle, so we can only judge whether another has followed the rule based on their ("external") behaviour.